Coir Vikas Yojana-Skill Upgradation and Mahila Coir Yojana(CVY-SUMCY)

Overview

About CVY-SUMCY

The Skill Upgradation and Mahila Coir Yojana component of Coir Vikas Yojana is not a scholarship a student files for on a portal. It is stipendiary training run by the Coir Board, and the request to run a batch comes from a self help group, an NGO or a government body that has the shed, the power and the raw material to host one. The trainee is paid for attending, the host is reimbursed for running the course, and a woman who finishes the spinning course is pointed towards PMEGP credit for a unit of her own. Several government pages still print rates the Board has since revised, so the date of any figure matters as much as the figure.

Coir Vikas Yojana is a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, and this component of it has two halves: Skill Upgradation, which trains artisans, workers and would-be entrepreneurs across the coir trade, and Mahila Coir Yojana, where the training is given to women artisans only (Ministry of MSME reply in Lok Sabha, PIB, 22 December 2022). Coir Board, Kochi is the nodal agency, and the work happens at its Regional and Sub-regional Offices and training centres, with technical help, wherever needed, from the Central Coir Research Institute and the Central Institute of Coir Technology (Coir Board operational guidelines for the component, archived copy).

The tilt towards women follows the workforce. The Board's guidelines describe an industry employing more than seven lakh workers and say 80% of them are women, particularly in the pre-product sectors; Mahila Coir Yojana, run since 1994, was the Board's first self-employment scheme aimed at women (operational guidelines, archived copy).

For years the women's programme was, in practice, a Kerala programme. In July 2017 the Ministry told Parliament that all 97 applications the Coir Board had received under Mahila Coir Yojana that year came from Kerala (PIB, 31 July 2017). By December 2022 the picture had changed: 740 women had been trained under the scheme in FY 2022-23, spread over the states and regions in the table, with Maharashtra ahead of Kerala (PIB, 22 December 2022).

The same reply said around 33 of the women trained that year had found employment in coir units, and that a Coir Board evaluation study in 2020 found the income of rural women had increased significantly after the training (PIB, 22 December 2022).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

Coir Board batches are announced as they are organised, so there is no fixed window to watch. The scheme record carries no open or close date, and entrepreneurship programmes are organised by the Regional and Sub-regional Offices according to targets, with courses and programmes announced through newspaper advertisements, a notice on the Coir Board website for EDPs, and print and electronic media for the Kalavoor courses (operational guidelines, archived copy).

The dates that matter more are the ones on which the terms changed, because older pages have not caught up.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Two separate tests apply, and the scheme record covers only the first: whether an organisation may host a batch. The Regional or Sub-regional Officer is told to make sure that an NGO is registered on NITI Aayog's Darpan portal, and field training centres may also be run with co-operative societies, associations and SFURTI clusters working in coir (operational guidelines, archived copy).

The second test is on the trainee, and it depends on the course. Mahila Coir Yojana batches take women artisans only. Regular courses at the National Coir Training and Design Centre at Kalavoor select through a written test, and orientation courses need a sponsor: a coir unit registered under the Coir Industry Registration Rules, 2008, a State Government, an NGO, or an educational or research body (operational guidelines, archived copy).

The guidelines publish no income ceiling, no age band and no minimum education for trainees. A caste or disability certificate appears in the document list only for those to whom it applies, and nothing in the component reserves places by category.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Orientation training is the one kind of Coir Board training the guidelines leave unpaid. When the Board runs it in-house at its own centres, on request from trade, industry or government-sponsored agencies, no stipend is given; every other field-level programme is stipendiary (operational guidelines, archived copy).

An NGO that is not on the Darpan portal cannot sign the sponsoring agency's undertaking, which carries that condition as a footnote, and a man cannot join a Mahila Coir Yojana batch, though he can join the Skill Upgradation courses.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

A Coir Board course has no second year to renew into. Each course pays its stipend for its own length, worked out on the attendance the trainer and the sponsoring agency certify, and the payment ends with the course (operational guidelines, archived copy).

The one progression the guidelines describe leads into teaching. Trainers for the Board's specialised programmes are picked by the Regional or Sub-regional Officer from the list of people who have completed the Trainers Training Programme, and a trainer's honorarium is capped at Rs 15,000 a month against a trainee's Rs 3,000 (operational guidelines, archived copy).

What you get

Award & benefits

The money is split three ways: a stipend to the trainee, an honorarium to the trainer, and an operating allowance to the organisation that hosts the batch. The first column comes from the operational guidelines the Board drew up for the 2017-18 to 2019-20 cycle, which the Ministry's updated Coir Vikas Yojana guidelines repeat word for word (Ministry of MSME updated guidelines, archived copy). The older column is what a 2017 parliamentary reply and the MyGov scheme page still show, and it is the likeliest source of a wrong number in circulation.

The payments the Ministry reported in December 2022 match the Rs 3,000 rate in the guidelines. Tamil Nadu's 100 women had been paid Rs 6,00,000 in stipend and Maharashtra's 160 women Rs 9,60,000, which is exactly Rs 3,000 a month over a two-month course for each of them (PIB, 22 December 2022; PIB, 10 August 2023; operational guidelines, archived copy).

The Rs 25 lakh project ceiling in the guidelines has since been overtaken. When PMEGP was continued for 2021-22 to 2025-26, its maximum project cost for manufacturing units went from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh; women count as a special category, with margin money subsidy at 35% of project cost in rural areas and 25% in urban areas; and the Coir Board is PMEGP's implementing agency for coir units (PIB, 30 May 2022).

Would-be entrepreneurs get a different kind of help. On an exposure tour to working coir centres, the Board reimburses 50% of actual travel cost for entrepreneurs and 90% for artisans working under a co-operative society or SHG sponsored by the State Government, in both cases subject to the AC two-tier fare, for a tour of five working days (operational guidelines, archived copy).

• Nature of assistance: Coir workers/entrepreneurs will get an awareness of modern technologies developed by the Coir Board. The training programme will help the trainees/ artisans to upgrade their skills in producing coir yarn and other diversified coir products. Management skills can also be acquired by attending EDP programmes to the entrepreneurs to run the Coir units more effectively and efficiently.
• Skill Upgradation: Entrepreneurship Promotion: Encourages individuals to start coir processing units through EDPs, workshops, seminars, and exposure tours. - Skill Development Training: Provides training in value-added coir products, spinning, and other processes to build skilled manpower. - Monthly Stipend Support: Offers ₹3,000 per month to trainees, with pro-rata payment for shorter training durations. - Trainer Support: Ensures quality training through honorarium up to ₹15,000 per month for trainers. - Operational Cost Assistance: Provides ₹400 per trainee per month to sponsoring agencies for expenses like raw materials, electricity, and other costs. - Technology Awareness: Helps workers and entrepreneurs understand and adopt modern coir processing technologies. - Management Skill Enhancement: Enables entrepreneurs to improve business management and operational efficiency.
• Mahila Coir Yojana (MYC): Women-Focused Training: Exclusive training programmes for rural women artisans in coir-related activities.- Advanced Skill Development: Training on modern machinery and advanced technology to enhance productivity and quality.- Entrepreneurship Support: Integration with entrepreneurial programmes to help women start their own coir units.- Linkage with PMEGP: Facilitates access to financial assistance for self-employment through PMEGP.- Handholding Support: Provides guidance and assistance by Coir Board officials to avail scheme benefits.- Distribution of Equipment: Supplies motorized ratts and other machinery for spinning, weaving, and production.- Financial Assistance for Units: Supports setting up coir units with project cost up to ₹25,00,000/- under PMEGP.- Employment Generation: Creates sustainable livelihood opportunities for rural women artisans.ce for procurement of machines/equipment may be obtained under the PMEGP scheme for setting up new coir units for which the maximum project cost is up to ₹25,00,000/-.

What to prepare

Documents required

Most of the list does one job: getting the stipend into the right bank account. The stipend is transferred by DBT to the trainee's Aadhaar-linked account, so the bank details the host submits must be for an Aadhaar-linked account, and the guidelines insist on an Election ID or Aadhaar card in every case, with other identity proof accepted in addition (operational guidelines, archived copy).

The two passport photographs have separate destinations: one is fixed to the completion certificate and the other stays on the office file. The organisation-side papers on power, machinery and raw material are the answers to the undertaking the host signs before the batch is approved, which also asks whether trainees will be employed in the sponsor's unit or helped to start their own, and what credit and marketing support is planned.

Step by step

How to apply

The application is offline and goes to a Coir Board office, not to a portal. A self help group, NGO or government body with a work shed, power connection, equipment and raw material approaches the Regional or Sub-regional Officer for its state with the names and addresses of the candidates and the documents the guidelines prescribe (Coir Board scheme page, archived copy). The officer scrutinises the application, takes the signed undertaking and enters into an agreement with the host before the batch starts (operational guidelines, archived copy).

An individual has two ways in without a host organisation. Courses at the Kalavoor centre are filled through advertisements in print and electronic media and recommendations from coir-producing states, and courses at the Regional Extension Centre take candidates sponsored by trade associations, unit owners, the Industries Department, NGOs, SFURTI cluster bodies and co-operatives, as well as from an open call through newspaper advertisements (operational guidelines, archived copy).

Tracking works through the paperwork, not a status page. The officer verifies the attendance registers, collects an acquittance certified by the host and the trainer and countersigned by the Regional Officer, and only then releases the stipend to the trainee's Aadhaar-linked account (operational guidelines, archived copy). A stipend that has not arrived is a question for the host organisation first: whether the register and the acquittance reached the office, and whether the account it submitted is the Aadhaar-linked one. The PMEGP loan for a trained woman's own unit is different; that application runs online on KVIC's PMEGP portal from application to sanction and release of funds by the bank (PIB, 30 May 2022).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Who chooses depends on where the course runs. For courses at the Kalavoor centre, an official committee of the Coir Board selects the trainees, and regular courses add a written test; at the Regional Extension Centre, the officer in charge selects from sponsored and open applicants; for field-level programmes, the Regional or Sub-regional Officer selects the host organisation, and the host puts forward the trainees (operational guidelines, archived copy).

Finishing is tested as well. The certificate is issued by the Regional or Sub-regional Officer after a test to the Board's norms, and for Mahila Coir Yojana and the trainers' course the practical test is conducted by the centre's technical staff.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The host organisation carries more responsibility than the scheme record suggests. Its undertaking makes it fully responsible for raw material, credit flow and market support, with gainful employment or a unit of their own for the trainees, and its Rs 400 per trainee per month is paid only against a self-certification of expenditure that the Regional or Sub-regional Officer verifies (operational guidelines, archived copy).

Courses follow NSQF norms, and the length of each is set by the skill being taught. An older Coir Board course list gives the regular Advanced Training Course as 12 months and the Artisans Training Course as 6 months, lists the Mahila Coir Yojana course at 2 months, and reserves the Board's right to lengthen or shorten any course (Coir Board details of training courses, archived copy).

Agencies that run entrepreneurship development programmes are held to an outcome. Each programme's expenditure is limited to Rs 1,00,000, and the agency is expected to ensure that at least 40% of participants become entrepreneurs, although the success-ratio table annexed to the same guidelines puts the share of successful entrepreneurs at 25% (operational guidelines, archived copy).

Get help

Contact

Applications and stipend queries go to the Regional or Sub-regional Office for the state; the Head Office is at Coir House, M.G. Road, Kochi, Kerala 682 016, telephone 0484-2351900, email info@coirboard.org (Coir Board contact page, archived copy). The two training centres named in the guidelines are the National Coir Training and Design Centre at Kalavoor, Alappuzha (adnctdc@gmail.com) and the Regional Extension Centre at Thanjavur (cbrectnjcoirboard@gmail.com).

The Board's Regional and Sub Regional Offices with a listed address are in the table; its contact page also lists Coir Board Extension Centres at Balasore in Odisha and Oros in Sindhudurg.

Lakshadweep has no office of its own: the Kavaratti Sub Regional Office works under the Regional Office in Kerala (srokavaratti@gmail.com).

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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