Scheme for Enhancement of Technical Competence and Manpower: Scheme of Financial Assistance for Setting Up Anchor Institute(SETCMAAI)

Overview

About SETCMAAI

The Scheme of Financial Assistance for Setting Up Anchor Institute pays an institution, not a student. Gujarat picks one industry-sponsored institute or centre of excellence for each focus sector and funds it to retrain teachers and rework course content for the state's ITIs, polytechnics and engineering colleges. No student applies for it, and no student receives a stipend or a fee waiver from it.

The anchor institute component is Scheme-1 of six in Gujarat's umbrella Scheme for Enhancement of Technical Competence and Manpower, notified by the Industries and Mines Department in Resolution No. MIS-102020-328011-I dated 1 September 2020. The Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CED), Gandhinagar, runs it as nodal agency on behalf of the Industries Commissionerate, according to the 2020 resolution.

The ceiling is Rs 10 crore per anchor institute over an operating period of 5 years, as CED's anchor-institute page states.

What the state buys with that money is a sector mentor. The resolution asks the anchor to survey the technical courses taught in Gujarat, benchmark ITI, polytechnic and engineering courses against national and international standards, propose curriculum changes to the government, run faculty development and training-of-trainers programmes, and act as knowledge partner and mentor to CED for the umbrella's other schemes (2020 resolution).

The 2020 resolution was in force from 7 August 2020 to 6 August 2025, matching the Gujarat Industrial Policy 2020, which was valid for five years from 7 August 2020. Its successor, the Viksit Gujarat Industrial Policy 2026, valid for five years from 1 June 2026, again lists capital and operational support for establishing anchor institutes among its skilling incentives, without setting amounts in the policy document itself.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The dates that govern this scheme come from the two resolutions and the policy documents, not from a yearly notice:

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

What the myScheme criteria leave out is that the anchor role is exclusive. The 2020 resolution allows only one anchor institute in each focus sector, lets the State Level Empowered Committee (SLEC) add sectors beyond the listed ones, and defines an anchor as an industry-sponsored institution with strong industry linkage and the ability to mentor skill development across its sector (2020 resolution). An applicant is competing for a sector, not simply qualifying for a grant.

CED's application guidelines, last updated in October 2015 under the earlier resolution, allow one institution to apply for more than one sector if it justifies its expertise in each.

The specimen application form shows what "proven track record" is tested against. It asks for the applicant's legal constitution (Companies Act, University Act, Society Act or Trust Act), turnover and profit for the last 3 years, staff dedicated to skill development, and placement details naming each trainee, employer and salary, backed by appointment letters.

The anchor must also be willing to lend its own faculty free of charge, because the resolution treats their services as the institute's investment in a public-private partnership (2020 resolution).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The myScheme record publishes no exclusion list, but the 2020 resolution rules out several costs and cases:

• Land and new buildings are not funded, and overheads booked under the capital head are not eligible.
• Payments to the anchor's internal faculty are not reimbursed.
• Capital spending made after two years from the sanction order is not funded, and the capital grant lapses automatically.

The specimen form asks the applicant to disclose court cases, outstanding government dues and any de-registration or blacklisting by a government body, and its declaration lets the Industries Commissionerate or CED reject a proposal if any information proves false (specimen application form).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

There is no yearly renewal to file. Assistance runs across the five-year operative period and is released against progress reports, not re-applied for each year (2020 resolution).

The commitment outlasts the money. The anchor and its nodal institutes must stay in operation for at least 10 years from the first disbursement and run as self-sustaining units in the last 5 years with no government grant, which the resolution calls the "EARN and RUN Model". If the anchor cannot fully utilise its capital support within two years, its operating support for the five years is cut in proportion to the unspent capital amount (2020 resolution).

What you get

Award & benefits

The Rs 10 crore ceiling splits into up to Rs 5 crore for capital expenditure and up to Rs 5 crore for operating expenditure (CED's anchor-institute page).

Only machinery, equipment and infrastructure for the anchor and its nodal institutes count as capital expenditure, never land or a new building, and operating expenditure is defined as recurring spending on training, asset maintenance, staff of the anchor cell, honorarium to external experts and consumables (2020 resolution).

Money also flows one level down. The anchor may pick up to five nodal institutes among degree, diploma and ITI institutions, judged on intake, pass-outs, placement ratio, infrastructure, nearby industry and management commitment, and it funds them from its own grant (2020 resolution).

The one benefit that reaches individuals sits in the resolution's "other support" for all six schemes: trainees who complete skill-upgradation training can claim back GSRTC bus passes between home and the training centre, on documents submitted to GSRTC (2020 resolution).

• General Assistance: Capital Expenditure Support: Up to ₹5,00,00,000/- for machinery, equipment, and infrastructure (excluding land and new buildings). - Operating Expenditure Support: Up to ₹5,00,00,000/- for running expenses, including faculty honorarium and administrative costs.
• Additional Assistance: Awareness Programs & Seminars: A maximum support of ₹1,00,000/- per training center per year will be provided for awareness programs and seminars.
• Other Expenditures: SLEC/IC/CED can approve the expenditure on any study, renovation/refurbishing of existing skill centers/institute, remuneration to third party evaluation of scheme, monitoring/audit expenses, assessment agency, etc.
• Trainee Transportation Reimbursement: Trainees who complete skill upgradation training under any scheme will be eligible for reimbursement of Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) bus passes for travel between their residence and training center as per the following rates:
• For BPL candidates, Physically Handicapped, SC, ST, SEBC, and Women: 100% 1. For Other candidates: 75%

What to prepare

Documents required

The checklist on the myScheme record comes from CED's specimen application form, and the form itself shows how each item must be prepared:

• Annexure-A (course details): name, duration in hours, batches a year, trainees per batch, fee per trainee with its break-up, and the certifying body, submitted on paper and as a Microsoft Word file.
• Annexure-B and Annexure-C (project cost): capital and recurring cost for the anchor and each nodal institute, over five years in Annexure-B and for the first year in Annexure-C, itemised from construction or refurbishing to equipment, tools, furniture and electrification, submitted on paper and as a Microsoft Excel sheet.
• Annexure-D (year-wise split): capital and recurring cost for each of the five years, shown separately for the anchor and its nodal institutes.
• Means of finance: the applicant's own contribution set against the government support sought.
• Need for the course: a justification for each course and a demand-supply gap analysis.
• Premises: sale deed, lease deed or rent agreement, a layout and colour photographs of the proposed centre.
• Implementation road map and pre-feasibility report, attached as separate sections.

Step by step

How to apply

Two official documents describe the application differently. The 2020 resolution says the anchor's proposal must be submitted online only, with a full implementation schedule and a year-wise projection of trainees for each course. CED's specimen form, marked "for guidance", ends with a process flow that starts at an online application, yet it is addressed to the CED Director in Gandhinagar and its checklist asks for a signature and stamp on every page plus a soft copy on CD or DVD. myScheme, for its part, lists the mode as offline.

Under the 2020 resolution, CED took online applications only twice a year, in April and October, and passed them to the Screening Committee (2020 resolution). CED's anchor-institute page now shows neither that window nor an online application link; its only downloads are the specimen form and the list of empanelled anchors. A practical sequence:

1. Ask CED whether proposals are being received under the current policy, and in which window, before building the file.
2. Prepare the proposal with Annexures A to D, the nodal institutes you intend to use, and industry support letters.
3. Submit the way CED confirms, keeping a signed and stamped hard copy ready because the specimen form asks for one.
4. Expect the Screening Committee to appraise feasibility, sometimes with outside experts, before the proposal reaches the SLEC.

Tracking a Proposal and the Grant

No public status tracker is described in the resolution or on CED's page. CED's process flow shows a proposal moving from submission to the Screening Committee and then to the state committee, which can approve, defer or reject it, followed by release of assistance, commencement of training and project completion. The practical way to learn where a proposal stands is to ask CED by phone or email.

After sanction, money moves on evidence: the anchor files a progress report every three months, assistance is released as the project progresses, and the grant sits in a separate bank account open to CED's auditors (2020 resolution).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection runs through two committees set up by the 2020 resolution. A Screening Committee chaired by the CED Director, with officers from the employment-and-training and technical-education directorates, the Industries Commissionerate and other state bodies, scrutinises each proposal for feasibility and may call in outside experts. It then recommends proposals to the SLEC, chaired by the Industries Commissioner, which selects the anchor and approves its programmes and budget, including those of its nodal institutes.

CED publishes two different lists of who was chosen. The Scheme-1 empanelment list linked from its anchor-institute page names only two anchors: Gujarat Power Engineering and Research Institute (GPERI), Mehsana, for solar, and Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, Gandhinagar, for ICT. CED's scheme brochure lists eight:

The brochure's eligibility line still uses the 2015 wording (universities and approved educational institutes), and it puts two institutions against chemicals and petrochemicals although both the 2015 resolution and the 2020 one allow a single anchor per sector. It does not say which of the eight were sanctioned under which resolution.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

A government-owned institute gets no exemption from the security the scheme demands: the resolution's general requirements, which bind all six schemes, make the performance bank guarantee compulsory for every applicant, government undertakings and organisations included (2020 resolution).

Other conditions from the same resolution:

• The anchor sets up an exclusive cell with full-time staff approved by the SLEC, and reports to CED every quarter on each of its ten listed functions.
• Every skill development centre under the umbrella must have a working CCTV camera.
• Deviation from the scheme's purpose or any malpractice leads to administrative action, including debarment and recovery of the grant.

Training batches must have at least 10 trainees and courses must run for at least a week or 40 hours (2020 resolution), the same floor the Gujarat Industrial Policy 2020 names for anchor-institute training programmes.

Get help

Contact

The specimen application form is addressed to the Director of CED, the scheme's nodal agency. CED's head office is at Block No. 1, 9th Floor, Udhyogbhavan, Sector 11, Gandhinagar 382 017, reachable on +91 79 232 43847 and at dir-ced@gujarat.gov.in (CED contact page).

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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