Scale without commensurate outcomes
The most striking feature of PMKVY is its scale. Over successive phases, the scheme certified more than a crore candidates and absorbed thousands of training partners into a common skilling framework. From a supply-side perspective, PMKVY succeeded in rapidly expanding training capacity and standardising qualification packs and assessments. Yet, the CAG audit makes it clear that this quantitative expansion was not matched by qualitative labour-market outcomes. Certification became the dominant metric of success, while indicators such as job quality, employment duration, income stability, and productivity gains remained weakly tracked or altogether absent.
Weak planning and poor demand alignment
A central criticism in the CAG report relates to planning. PMKVY was implemented without a robust, periodically updated national or district-level skill development plan. Training targets and job roles were often finalised without granular skill-gap analysis or credible forecasting of sectoral and regional demand. As a result, the composition of training frequently diverged from projected employment needs, particularly in labour-intensive sectors such as construction, logistics, and local services. This planning deficit meant that even well-trained candidates often entered labour markets with limited absorption capacity, undermining the employability promise of the scheme.
Fragmentation and lack of convergence
The audit also highlights the broader institutional weakness of India’s skilling ecosystem—namely, poor convergence. Skill development activities continue to be spread across multiple ministries, state governments, and autonomous bodies, with PMKVY operating more as one scheme among many rather than as a unifying framework. Despite repeated policy statements on convergence, overlapping roles, inconsistent standards, and fragmented monitoring systems persisted. This diluted accountability and reduced the overall effectiveness of public expenditure on skilling.
Declining and uneven placement performance
Placement outcomes emerge as one of the most critical fault lines in PMKVY’s design and execution. While early phases reported moderate placement rates, PMKVY 3.0 witnessed a sharp decline. The CAG audit documents wide inter-state variation, with some states reporting reasonable placement outcomes and others showing negligible results. More concerning was the weak verification of placement data, including instances of inadequate or unreliable documentation. The heavy reliance on self-reported placement evidence and limited post-placement tracking weakened confidence in the scheme’s employment claims and exposed structural flaws in incentive design.
Monitoring and accountability gaps
PMKVY relied heavily on digital monitoring tools, particularly Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance systems, to ensure training integrity. However, the audit reveals widespread non-compliance and post-facto relaxations, especially for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) components. In practice, attendance verification and training duration controls were inconsistently enforced, reducing assurance that candidates actually received the training hours prescribed. These monitoring gaps increased the risk of superficial training delivery and eroded value for public money.
RPL and employer-led skilling: promise versus practice
Recognition of Prior Learning, especially under the Best-in-Class Employer (BICE) model, was conceptually one of PMKVY’s strongest innovations. It aimed to formalise existing skills and improve labour mobility. Yet, CAG findings suggest that weak employer validation, insufficient evidence standards, and inadequate oversight diluted the credibility of RPL certifications. In several cases, the foundational assumption of a genuine employer–employee relationship was not convincingly established, turning what should have been a high-impact instrument into a volume-driven certification exercise.
Financial governance and institutional oversight
From a financial management perspective, the audit points to avoidable weaknesses rather than systemic fraud. Issues such as inconsistent accounting of interest income, excess administrative charges, and delays in transferring funds to district-level skill institutions indicate gaps in oversight and internal controls. While these may appear technical, they collectively signal governance fragility and undermine confidence in the scheme’s stewardship of public resources.
Limited local anchoring and mobilisation
Finally, PMKVY struggled to build a strong district-level skilling ecosystem. Candidate mobilisation was largely driven by training partners and informal networks rather than structured career guidance, industry outreach, or local employment mapping. Institutional mechanisms such as District Skill Committees and Skill Information Centres remained underutilised, reinforcing the perception of PMKVY as a centrally driven supply-side programme rather than a locally embedded employment strategy.
Overall assessment
In essence, PMKVY represents a classic case of ambitious scale meeting weak institutional foundations. The scheme succeeded in creating visibility for skill development and standardising training delivery, but it failed to evolve into a genuinely demand-driven labour-market instrument. The latest CAG audit underscores that without credible planning, strong convergence, rigorous monitoring, and verifiable employment outcomes, skilling risks becoming an end in itself rather than a means to productive employment. For PMKVY to fulfil its original promise, future iterations must shift decisively from counting certificates to building durable, locally anchored pathways into work.#PMKVY
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