DDUGKY- The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) announced the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) Antyodaya Diwas, on 25th September 2014. DDU-GKY is a part of the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), tasked with the dual objectives of adding diversity to the incomes of rural poor families and cater to the career aspirations of rural youth. The Yojana was launched on the occasion of the 98th birthday of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay. Earlier the Yojana was known as Aajeevika Skills Development Programme (ASDP).

It evolved out of the need to diversify incomes of the rural poor and to cater to the occupational aspirations of their youth. DDU-GKY aims to skill rural youth who are poor and provide them with jobs having regular monthly wages at or above the minimum wages. It is one of the clusters of initiatives of MoRD that seeks to promote rural livelihoods. It is a part of the Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana- National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) – the Mission for poverty reduction.

There is a continuum of skills that are required in an economy and there are various ways in which to acquire them. In India, while higher-level skills have received some attention, the same cannot be said for skills for which formal education is not a prerequisite. This means that the poor are doubly hit – first because of poverty and second because of poor access to formal education.

DDU-GKY  seeks to fill this gap by imparting the specific set of knowledge, skills and attitude needed by the poor to access full-time jobs with regular monthly wages.