Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP) in Haryana

What is SANKALP, and how does it relate to Haryana?

SANKALP, Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion; is a centrally sponsored programme of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), assisted by a World Bank loan. SANKALP was launched on 19 January 2018 with a published implementation period running to March 2023. In Haryana, the programme worked through the state's skill administration: the Directorate of Skill Development and Industrial Training and the Haryana Skill Development Mission, along with District Skill Committees in each district.

SANKALP is the single most misunderstood entry in most state scheme lists, because its name promises livelihood and readers reasonably assume a stipend. SANKALP does not pay individuals. SANKALP is a systems programme. It funds the machinery that decides what short-term training is offered, how its quality is assured, whether it matches local employer demand, and whether women, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, minority and disabled candidates actually get into those courses.

According to MSDE, SANKALP aimed to improve short-term skill training qualitatively and quantitatively by strengthening institutions, bringing better market connectivity, and including marginalised sections of society.

What were the objectives and result areas?

SANKALP was built around three key result areas, with a fourth strand on partnerships:

1. Institutional strengthening at central, state and district level. This is the component that touched Haryana most directly. It funded the state skill development mission's capacity, and set up and strengthened District Skill Committees, the district-level bodies that are supposed to plan training against local demand rather than against a central template.
2. Quality assurance of skill development programmes. Common norms, assessment and certification standards, trainer training and monitoring systems, so that a certificate issued in one district means the same as one issued in another.
3. Inclusion of the marginalised population in skill development programmes. Targeted strategies for women, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, persons with disabilities and other under-represented groups.
4. Expanding skills through public-private partnerships, drawing industry into curriculum design, training delivery and placement.

Who benefits from SANKALP, and who cannot apply?

Who the programme is for:

• The Haryana Skill Development Mission and the state skill administration, which received capacity support and could earn State Incentive Grants against a performance matrix.
• District Skill Committees in Haryana's districts, which were set up or strengthened to prepare district skill development plans.
• Training providers and assessment bodies, through the quality assurance systems the programme funded.
• Youth and marginalised groups indirectly, because better-planned, better-assured training reaches them through ITIs and other centres.

Who cannot apply:

• An individual cannot apply for SANKALP. There is no application form, no portal registration and no personal benefit to claim. Any website or agent offering "SANKALP registration" for a fee is not describing a real government process.
• A private individual seeking a stipend or unemployment allowance is not eligible under SANKALP and should look at the Haryana Employment Department's Saksham Yuva Yojana instead.
• A training provider cannot bid directly to MSDE under SANKALP as though it were a tender; participation flows through the state mission's annual action plan and the district plan.
• Because the published implementation period ran to March 2023, fresh central funding under the SANKALP name is not open, and any current proposal must be routed to whichever successor arrangement MSDE notifies.

What was the State Incentive Grant, and why did it matter to Haryana?

State Skill Development Missions were strengthened through State Incentive Grants, a performance-linked transfer released against a scoring matrix rather than as a flat allocation. All states and union territories participated in SANKALP, and baseline scores on the incentive matrix were completed for an initial group of states.

The design intent, in MSDE's own framing, was to motivate states to set up a decentralised skills development ecosystem that builds capabilities and enhances employability, especially of youth and the marginalised. For a state like Haryana, with a large ITI network and strong manufacturing and auto-component demand around Gurugram, Faridabad, Manesar and Hisar, the practical value of the grant lay in funding district-level planning capacity that could match courses to employers actually hiring nearby.

How does an institution engage with SANKALP-type funding?

Because SANKALP has no citizen route, the honest description of "how to apply" is the institutional one. The sequence a state follows for this class of centrally sponsored skill funding is:

1. The state skill development mission prepares an annual action plan, setting out targets, district priorities, inclusion strategies and the institutional strengthening it proposes to fund.
2. District Skill Committees prepare district skill development plans, which feed into the state plan with local labour-market evidence.
3. The state submits the plan to MSDE, which appraises it against the programme's result areas.
4. Performance is scored on the State Incentive Grant matrix, starting from a baseline assessment, and the incentive tranche is released against improvement.
5. Funds are released and utilisation certificates filed before further tranches follow, in the standard pattern for centrally sponsored programmes.
6. MSDE and the World Bank monitor results, since disbursement in a loan-assisted operation is tied to verified result indicators rather than to expenditure alone.

An institution in Haryana that wants to participate should approach the Haryana Skill Development Mission and the Directorate of Skill Development and Industrial Training rather than writing to MSDE directly.

What should an individual in Haryana do instead?

If you arrived here looking for skill training or a livelihood benefit, these are the working channels in Haryana:

The distinction worth carrying away is simple: SANKALP built the system; ITIs, PMKVY centres and the Employment Department deliver to people.

Common misunderstandings about SANKALP

• "SANKALP gives Rs 8,000 a month." No such payment exists under SANKALP. Stipends people associate with the name usually belong to PMKVY, the apprenticeship scheme, or Haryana's Saksham Yuva Yojana.
• "Register on the SANKALP portal." There is no citizen registration portal. Skill training registration in Haryana happens through the ITI admission process or the Skill India Digital platform.
• "SANKALP is a Haryana state scheme." SANKALP is a centrally sponsored MSDE programme, loan-assisted by the World Bank, implemented in every state and union territory. Haryana is a participating state, not the owner.
• "SANKALP and Saksham Yuva are the same." They are not. The similarity of the transliterated names is the whole reason for the confusion; one funds institutions, the other pays individuals.

Key dates and figures

• 19 January 2018, SANKALP launch date.
• March 2023 — end of the published implementation period.
• 3 key result areas: institutional strengthening, quality assurance, inclusion; with a fourth strand on public-private partnerships.
• All states and union territories participated, with baseline State Incentive Grant scores completed for an initial group of states.
• World Bank loan-assisted: disbursement linked to verified results.

This guide deliberately omits a total outlay figure. Widely circulated numbers for SANKALP's budget appear on unofficial sites, and no current MSDE page was available to this writer to confirm a specific rupee outlay, so no figure is stated here rather than repeating an unverified one.

Where to ask for help

• Directorate of Skill Development and Industrial Training, Haryana, contact details published at itiharyana.gov.in.
• Haryana Skill Development Mission, for short-term training and district skill committee matters.
• Saral Haryana helpline 1800-2000-023, 7 am to 9 pm, Monday to Saturday, for any Haryana government service query.
• Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, for the current status of SANKALP and its successor arrangements.

No fee is payable to anyone in connection with SANKALP. Since there is no individual benefit, any demand for money in its name is a fraud and should be reported to the district administration.

How to check your application status

There is no personal application to track under SANKALP, because there is no personal application to begin with. The programme does not issue an individual acknowledgement number, and no citizen login exists on any MSDE or Haryana portal for it. If a website or agent offers to check your "SANKALP application status" for a fee, that is not a real government service.

What can be tracked, and by whom:

• The Haryana Skill Development Mission and the Directorate of Skill Development and Industrial Training can track whether the state's annual action plan has been appraised by MSDE, whether the State Incentive Grant tranche has been released against the scoring matrix, and whether utilisation certificates for an earlier tranche have been accepted before the next one is processed.
• District Skill Committees can track the status of their district skill development plan within the state's submission to MSDE.
• An individual who actually wants a status to check should look at the scheme they are really enrolled in: an ITI admission status at itiharyana.gov.in, a PMKVY training and certification status through the centre they trained at, or a Saksham Yuva Yojana instalment status through the Haryana Employment Department. None of these statuses is a SANKALP status, even though SANKALP helped fund the systems behind them.

If you are unsure which of these applies to you, the Saral Haryana helpline (1800-2000-023, 7 am to 9 pm, Monday to Saturday) can point you to the right department rather than to SANKALP itself.

Common reasons for rejection

SANKALP has no individual applicant, so there is no personal rejection letter, no "application rejected" status, and no document deficiency that turns away a person. Reports of an individual being "rejected under SANKALP" are almost always a mix-up with a different, similarly named scheme, most often Saksham Yuva Yojana or a PMKVY training batch, and the fix is to raise the query with that scheme's own helpline or portal rather than with SANKALP.

At the institutional level, the delays and holds that do occur under this type of centrally sponsored, World Bank-assisted funding are different in kind from a citizen's application being rejected:

• A tranche held back for a missing or incomplete utilisation certificate. Centrally sponsored schemes release the next instalment only after the state accounts for how the previous one was spent; a state or district skill committee that has not filed this cannot expect further release regardless of how strong its new proposal is.
• A district skill development plan not reflecting local labour-market evidence. Plans built on a generic template rather than on actual employer demand in that district's industrial belt are weaker candidates during MSDE's appraisal.
• A State Incentive Grant score below the threshold on the performance matrix. Because the grant is performance-linked rather than a flat allocation, a state mission that has not improved on its baseline score on institutional strengthening, quality assurance or inclusion indicators will see a smaller or delayed incentive tranche, not an outright rejection of the state's participation.
• Proposals routed directly to MSDE instead of through the state mission's annual action plan. A training provider or district body that tries to approach the Ministry independently, bypassing the Haryana Skill Development Mission's consolidated plan, is not following the actual channel and should expect the request to go nowhere.

If you arrived here believing you personally were rejected under SANKALP, the more useful next step is to identify which real, individual-facing scheme (ITI admission, PMKVY, Saksham Yuva Yojana, or an apprenticeship) you actually applied to, and pursue that scheme's own status and grievance channel.