Ritwika Mitra By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Funds allocated by the Centre for skill development training programmes for members of the transgender community remained unutilised since last year, shows a response to a Right To information application by this paper.

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had allocated an amount of around Rs 1 crore to the National Backward Classes Finance & Development Corporation (NBCFDC), a Central government undertaking, in 2018 for skill development training programmes for transgender people. The amount of money spent since 2018 was ‘nil’, showed the RTI response.

Consequently, the number of beneficiaries for the skill development programmes remained nil since 2018 as well. The response could not furnish the available list of courses that the NBCFDC has chalked out for running these programmes since 2018.

Failing to reach out to transgender community, understanding the community’s specific requirements and building a network system in order to conceptualise the programmes in a time-bound manner were the major factors why the funds remained unutilised, said an NBCFDC official.

Employment of people from the transgender community also remains another challenge, said the official.

“Since the funds spent remained unutilised, the ministry did not allocate any fresh funds to the NBCFDC this financial year. It had allocated an amount of Rs 1 crore to the corporation for running the programmes,” said a Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment official.

The NBCFDC has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Society for People's Awareness, Care & Empowerment (SPACE) NGO and National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development (NIESBUD) under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to run a pilot project on beautician courses, said K Narayan, managing director, NBCFDC. SPACE will be in charge for mobilising people from the transgender community.

“We have also recently appointed a trans-woman as a consultant for the skill development project,” said Narayan.

At a later stage, the NBCFDC will be planning to diversify into other areas like imparting skills for choreography and also help them gain employability in the hotel industry, he added.