Ongole: RUDSETI paves way for self-employment

Ongole: The Rural Development and Self Employment Training Institute (RUDSETI) here sponsored by the Canara Bank, Syndicate Bank and Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatha Education Trust is offering training in various vocational courses and also aims at the all-round development of the candidate. While graduates from professional institutions are looking for jobs for years, many of the one-month course completion certificate holders from RUDSETI are becoming entrepreneurs and even providing employment to a few others.

The first unit of RUDSETI is established in 1982 in Ujire in Karnataka under the guidance of the Dr D Veerendra Heggade, the Dhrmadhikari of the Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatha Education Trust and expanded it to 17 States with 27 centres headed by the managers from Syndicate Bank and Canara Bank.

In Andhra Pradesh, there are two institutions, one at Ongole and the other at Anantapuram with training capacity of around 750 candidates per year at each centre. In other districts, the lead banks operate RUDSETIs to offer similar training on the lines of RUDSETIs.

The director of RUDSETI Ongole, Gudivada Suryanarayana Murthy said that they follow the caterer approach and prepare courses depending on the interest of the candidates as well as the demand for the profession in future. He said that they offer 62 courses approved by the National Skill Qualification Framework by the Union Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

He announced that they handhold the candidates for two years after the completion of their training and guide them through the stages of income generation, self-employment and entrepreneurship. He said that women's tailoring, cell phone repairs and service, light motor vehicle driving, electrical motor rewinding, photography and videography, computerised accounting, beauty parlour management and others are the courses in demand at Ongole centre and they are ready to introduce a new course if the candidates are available, as they did with the SHE Auto driving course and pickle and papad course for differently-abled.

Kukkala Yugandhar, a student of RUDSETI Ongole, in 1997 in the photography and videography course has made a great career. He received the gold medal for the best outgoing student for his performance in the Master of Fine Arts in Photography and Media Communication. He worked as a photojournalist in various dailies, weeklies and monthlies earlier and won the Best Photographer award 10 times from the State government and also received a Lifetime Achievement Award. He is now encouraging interested photographers as the secretary of Prakasam district fine arts and photographic society and training unemployed youth in photography at the institutions like RUDSETI Vetapalem, Ongole and NIRED in Rajam as the faculty member.

Parsiboyina Suman, another student of the RUDSETI in 2000 in mobile phone repairs and services is operating an authorised service centre for Samsung, Celkon, Karbonn and other companies in Ongole. He said that he joined RUDSETI when the mobile phones were being introduced in the Indian market and he made a long career. As the authorised service partner for various mobile companies, he is now providing employment to 12 others and planning to expand into mobile retailing soon.

Vutukuri Tilak, who did the AC and Refrigerator Service course in RUDSETI in 2018 is now running a service centre in Tangutur. As he is an engineering graduate, he makes sure that the issue is resolved at the root-level and is making a strong customer base along with a gradual increase in his income. He said that he wants to employ the part-time mechanics for full-time from this season.