With reference to Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, consider the following statements:  1) It is the flagship scheme of the Ministry of Labour and Employment. 2) It, among other things, will also impart training in soft skills, entrepreneurship, financial and digital literacy. 3) It aims to align the competencies of the unregulated workforce of the country to the National Skill Qualification Framework. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

The correct answer is C (2 and 3 only). Statement 1 is wrong, and statements 2 and 3 are right.

• Statement 1 is false. PMKVY is the flagship scheme of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), not the Ministry of Labour and Employment. The Labour Ministry runs its own schemes and bodies such as EPFO and ESIC.
• Statement 2 is true. Apart from technical skills, PMKVY training covers soft skills, entrepreneurship, financial literacy and digital literacy.
• Statement 3 is true. The scheme's stated aim is to align the competencies of the unregulated (informal) workforce with the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), which sets common skill levels and certification.

The core concept here is the skilling architecture: MSDE as the nodal ministry, NSQF as the common benchmark, and the Skill India mission as the umbrella. For Mains GS-III, this links to the debate on employability, the demographic dividend and the formalisation of informal labour. Later versions of PMKVY have been rolled out, but MSDE remains the nodal ministry.

Trap: Aspirants see "employment" and "labour" in the scheme's purpose and assume the Labour Ministry runs it. Always check the nodal ministry separately from the scheme's objective.