The constantly evolving COVID 19 pandemic has cast a shadow on both the health and economy of the nation. The already struggling economy is further jolted down by the pandemic. According to the figures of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s weekly tracker survey, the overall unemployment rate has risen to 23.4% from 8.74% due to lockdown. It is estimated that about 50 million people might have lost jobs in just two weeks of the lockdown. Even after the lockdown is over, it is expected that the unemployment rate will be high.

Skill initiatives for workforce development need to be reimagined and redesigned for the coming time. The COVID-19 crisis has sensitized people towards hygiene and sanitation. It has made them aware of the need to ensure cleanliness at all levels to avoid infection. This has created need for deep cleaning and disinfection services for personal and commercial vehicles. There is an increased demand for skilled people to provide the required service.

In this purview, Sambhav and COL are conducting a pilot project- “Online training program to reskill people to provide deep cleaning & disinfection service to 2/3/4 wheeler vehicles.”

The project aims to reskill auto-technicians, tailors and beauticians into Sanitation Hygiene Entrepreneurs. Some 2,100 of them will be trained by 30 June 2020. And the pilot will be scaled up as a workable model in the subsequent phase.