NCS to be primary govt portal for skilled and unskilled workers

The Centre has decided that the National Career Service (NCS) portal — which brings together jobseekers, employers and trainers — will now be the primary government portal for both skilled and unskilled workers.

According to a document titled ‘Implementation of Budget Announcements 2022-23’, at a meeting under the joint chairmanship of skill and labour ministers in October last year, it was also decided to subsume the Atmanirbhar Skilled Employee-Employer Mapping (ASEEM) portal under the Skill India portal.

The ASEEM portal acts as a directory that matches supply of the skilled workforce with the market demand. On the other hand, the Skill India portal accumulates the skills data of various central ministries, state governments, private training providers and corporates on a single platform. 

Last year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that portals like Udyam, e-Shram, NCS and ASEEM would be interlinked. This, in turn, will increase their scope as a tool to upskill and present job opportunities to jobseekers.

“Udyam, e-Shram, NCS and ASEEM portals will be interlinked. Their scope will be widened. They will now perform as portals with live and organic databases, providing G2C, B2C and B2B services. These services will relate to credit facilitation, skilling, and recruitment with an aim to further formalise the economy. They will also enhance entrepreneurial opportunities for all,” Sitharaman had said.

The document mentions that Udyam, e-Shram and NCS portals have been interlinked and the process of linking ASEEM with the other portals is ongoing.

NCS — being the primary employment portal — allows the vacancies posted by employers registered on the NCS portal to be visible to Udyam, e-shram and ASEEM users.

About 175,000 informal and one million skilled workers, registered through the e-Shram and Skill India portals, respectively, have been shortlisted by employers. This came as the government began integrating both the portals with the NCS site. The NCS portal has also been integrated with other ministries/ departments like MHRD and AICTE.

Online integration with EPFO, ESIC has also been done to link the willing employers. This would help them to shortlist candidates through a country-wide database on the NCS portal.

Besides, the NCS portal has also been integrated with state employment portals of the 20 states/UTs. Seven states/UTs are directly using the NCS portal for registering jobseekers.