Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship launches AI-based ASEEM digital platform, Smart Cities Mission
1. Smart Cities Mission for India Cycles4Change Challenge
“The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is committed to helping cities develop high quality transport systems that offer sustainable mobility options to their residents. I urge all cities to work towards achieving a vision of safe and fun cycling for everyone.”
- National Smart Cities Mission is an urban renewal and retrofitting program by the Government of India with the mission to develop smart cities across the country, making them citizen friendly and sustainable.
- The Union Ministry of Urban Development is responsible for implementing the mission in collaboration with the state governments of the respective cities.
- The mission initially included 100 cities, with the deadline for completion of the projects set between 2019 and 2023.
- The Smart Cities Mission opened for India Cycles4Change Challenge was launched on 25th June, 2020 by Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Housing and Urban Affairs.
- The Challenge aims to help cities connect with their citizens as well as experts to develop a unified vision to promote cycling.
- Cities are encouraged to collaborate with CSOs, experts, and volunteers as they develop and implement their plans.
- Citizen collaboration will also be a key metric in the evaluation of proposals submitted by the cities.
- To assist the cities in this aspect, the online portal also features a registration form for CSOs, urban designers, planners, students and other citizens who wish to collaborate with their cities.
The vision of the India Cycles4Change Challenge:
- The need for personalised forms of transport is expected to increase as a response to COVID-19.
- A recent survey by the ITDP India Programme shows that cycling would increase by 50-65% as cities come out of lockdown.
- Cities around the world are leveraging the opportunity to expand their cycling networks and public bicycle-sharing systems.
- As per ITDP, increasing cycling can help cities in a green economic recovery.
- Investments in cycling infrastructure have economic benefits of up to 5.5 times the initial investment.
- Cycling for short distances can result in an annual benefit of INR 1.8 trillion to the Indian economy.
Cycling initiatives in India Cities:
- Indian cities have started working towards promoting cycling as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Kolkata has proposed a dedicated cycle corridor by reclaiming parking spaces.
- The city will conduct a preliminary road survey within four months, after which the project will be implemented by early next year.
- In Guwahati, The Green lane Foundation, with the support of the Bicycle Mayor of Guwahati and Pedal for a Change, is conducting a survey for citizens to vote for the best routes for bicycle lanes in the city, which will be incorporated into the Challenge.
Durga Shanker Mishra IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs said “We are proud to launch the India Cycles4Change Challenge with the ambitious goal of creating cycling-friendly cities across the country. Cycling can aid a green recovery from COVID-19 for the transport sector and create a golden age for active, sustainable, and efficient travel in our cities.”
2. Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship launches AI-based ASEEM digital platform
- In an endeavour to improve the information flow and bridge the demand-supply gap in the skilled workforce market, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) launched ‘Aatamanirbhar Skilled Employee Employer Mapping (ASEEM)’ portal to help skilled people find sustainable livelihood opportunities.
- Apart from recruiting a skilled workforce that spurs business competitiveness and economic growth, the Artificial Intelligence-based platform has been envisioned to strengthen their career pathways by handholding them through their journeys to attain industry-relevant skills and explore emerging job opportunities especially in the post COVID era.
- Envisaging the rapidly changing nature of work and how it impacts the workforce is crucial in restructuring the skilling ecosystem with the new normal settling post-pandemic.
- Besides identifying major skills gap in the sectors and providing review of global best practices, ASEEM will provide employers a platform to assess the availability of skilled workforce and formulate their hiring plans.
- Aatamanirbhar Skilled Employee Employer Mapping (ASEEM) refers to all the data, trends and analytics which describe the workforce market and map demand of skilled workforce to supply.
- It will provide real-time granular information by identifying relevant skilling requirements and employment prospects.
- India as a talent powerhouse’ at the India Global Week 2020 Summit, the ASEEM portal has been envisioned to give a huge impetus to our persistent efforts to bridge the demand-supply gap for skilled workforce across sectors, bringing limitless and infinite opportunities for the nation’s youth.
- The initiative aims to accelerate India’s journey towards recovery by mapping skilled workforce and connecting them with relevant livelihood opportunities in their local communities especially in the post COVID era. With the increasing use of technology and e-management systems which assist in bringing in processes and intelligent tools to drive demand driven and outcome-based skill development programs, this platform will ensure we bring in close convergence and coordination across various schemes and programs operating in the skill ecosystem.
- This will also ensure that we monitor any sort of duplication of data and further re-engineer the vocational training landscape in the country ensuring a skilling, up-skilling and re-skilling in a more organised set up.
- ASEEM will bridge the demand supply gap in the skilled workforce market.
- Migrant labour has been severely impacted by the socio-economic fallout of the COVID pandemic.
- In the current context, NSDC has taken up the responsibility of mapping the dispersed migrant population around the country and providing them the means to re-build their livelihood by matching their skill-sets to available employment opportunities.
- The launch of ASEEM is the first step on that journey. I am confident that the real-time information ASEEM provides to both employer and employee will add value to the labour ecosystem and contribute to building the trust among the workforce, which is essential for the recovery of the economy.
- ASEEM portal aims at supporting decision and policymaking via trends and analytics generated by the system for programmatic purposes.
- ASEEM shall help in providing real-time data analytics to NSDC and its Sector Skill Councils about the demand and supply patterns including – industry requirements, skill gap analysis, demand per district/ state/cluster, key workforce suppliers, key consumers, migration patterns and multiple potential career prospects for candidates.
The portal consists of three IT based interfaces:
a) Employer Portal – Employer onboarding, Demand Aggregation, candidate selection
b) Dashboard – Reports, Trends, analytics, and highlight gaps
c) Candidate Application – Create & Track candidate profile, share job suggestion
- ASEEM will be used as a match-making engine to map skilled workers with the jobs available.
- The portal and App will have provision for registration and data upload for workers across job roles, sectors and geographies.
- The skilled workforce can register their profiles on the app and can search for employment opportunities in their neighbourhood.
- Through ASEEM, employers, agencies and job aggregators looking for skilled workforce in specific sectors will also have the required details at their fingertips.
- It will also enable policymakers take more objective view of various sectors.
