How Rajasthan stole the march on EV skilling under PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana

NEW DELHI: Rajesh Kumawat, pursuing a diploma in electrical engineering at Government Polytechnic College, Sikar, has an elective paper on electric vehicles.

“It was a very interesting class, especially learning about the motor power calculations, charging load capacity and batteries. EV is the future,” he said. Kumawat is hoping to build a career in EV as is his counterpart, Goutam Pahadiya, in Government Polytechnic College, Tonk. Pahadiya, also aiming for an EV job, only wishes his college had the right laboratory for “getting hands-on experience”. So far, training has been in theory.

As it happens, both are in the right place – in Rajasthan, in the middle of something akin to a boom in EV training. One of every two Indians training for EV job roles under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) are doing it in Rajasthan. Of all learners pursuing EV courses under the Government of India’s skill development initiative, Rajasthan alone has 53.69%.

The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), implementing agency for the PMKVY scheme, attributes the immense EV growth in Rajasthan to a combination of “policy support, industrial training infrastructure, and regional demand for skilled professionals”. Proximity to Delhi helps.

Out of the eight EV job roles which are in high demand as per the scheme’s online data, training and employment tracking platform Skill India Digital Hub (SIDH), the “electric vehicle service technician” role sees the most demand and also has the most training candidates.

Skill India, PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana and EV

A part of the Skill India Mission, the PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana was launched in 2015 with the goal of skill development through short-term training (STT) and up-skilling and re-skilling and recognition of prior learning (RPL). The current version of the scheme – PMKVY 4.0 – started in 2022 and is slated to continue till 2026.

As per data from the Skill India Digital Hub – also maintained by the NSDC – for the period between February 22, 2023, to February 28, 2025, a total of 31,83,852 candidates enrolled in 16,606 training centres from 36 states and 736 districts. The SIDH, itself about a year old, reports the “electronics” sector as the most lucrative one of all.

It lists eight job roles in the EV sector requiring different levels of skills as per the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) which organises qualifications by matching with levels of knowledge and skills. These eight are the following:

• Electric Vehicle Assembly Operator
• Electric Vehicle Assembly Technician
• Electric Vehicle Maintenance Technician
• Electric Vehicle Product Design Engineer
• Electric Vehicle Quality Control Inspector
• Electric Vehicle Service Lead Technician
• Electric Vehicle Service Technician
• Electric Vehicle Test Engineer

A total of 67,586 candidates are enrolled in training for the eight job roles with Rajasthan alone supplying more than half. Madhya Pradesh is a very distant second and Uttar Pradesh is in the third position. The table below provides the state-wise breakdown for the top five and also how many of the trainees are aiming to become EV service technicians.

PMKVY 4.0: Top 5 states in EV job training

The electric vehicle service technician requires a NSQF level 4 skill qualification to be eligible. The level 4 involves people who already have knowledge of the given field.

While 100% of Rajasthan’s learners seem to be training to become service technicians, this group vastly outnumbers the rest in other states as well. In Madhya Pradesh, UP, Punjab and Bihar, each of the other roles, including maintenance technicians, test engineers, assembly technicians, and product design engineers, has fewer than 200 candidates enrolled statewide.

Placement is delinked from PMKVY 4.0 and the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship no longer reports on how many graduates of these programmes are actually landing jobs.

Overall, India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh is unsurprisingly the one with the largest number of skills training candidates – 6,42,333. Less predictably, the top job role in UP is that of traditional hand embroidery, drawing over 77,641 candidates.

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Rajasthan: EV skills in government polytechnics

A large section of the skilling sector is in private hands. In Rajasthan, too, courses on the EV industry were initially run by private colleges. The high cost meant these were beyond the reach of a large number of students.

Er Neha Sakka addressing a gathering. She is among those spearheading EV skills training in Rajasthan. (Image: By special arrangement)

However, 2023 saw radical change. The Teacher's Training Centre and Learning Resources Development Centre (TTC and LRDC) under Rajasthan's department of technical education, started awareness-raising among students enrolled in government polytechnics.

A year before, Er Neha Sakka, an employee of Rajasthan government’s department of electricity, had started a platform to run the “Trust EV Awareness Oath” programme. The two centres, TTC and LRDC collaborated with it.

“Since May 2022, I have been running a free-of-cost youth awareness programme to teach them about the EV ecosystem as it is the future. I wanted the programme to reach the children studying in rural colleges and the collaboration with TTC and LRDC was a right opportunity,” Sakka told Careers360.

The first round of training began in 2023 at the Government Engineering College Jaipur which later got a Centre of Excellence in Electric Vehicle.

Ravi Gupta, principal of GEC Jaipur till December, said: “Rajasthan is a leading state, providing EV literacy to people and students. The first set of training began in 2023 with two batches of 30 students each. Free-of-cost education was provided to them. It was a class related to the EV charging station, battery back up and almost everything around the EV ecosystem. It was students mostly from rural areas who were given the opportunities and many even got a job in it. That is why interest has grown.”

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As many as 550 students were trained in the first phase alone.

Gupta is now the principal of Government Engineering College (GEC) Bharatpur where he plans to introduce EV programmes as well.

Yogendra Agarwal, joint director, TTC and LRDC, who took the initiative forward, now plans to conduct learning programmes for teachers across Rajasthan.

“On the various programmes that have been conducted there is a good response from students and we are tapping into the potential of the field. Students have shared on how they really like the sessions which were imparted under the “Trust EV Awareness Oath” programme,” he said.

‘Rising Rajasthan’ and EV

The ‘EV ecosystem’ is now central to Rajasthan’s development. It was a focus area in the ‘Rising Rajasthan’ summit, a three-day event organised in December, 2024 to draw investments to the state.

Goutam Pahadiya’s wish that his polytechnic had an EV lab has been echoed widely enough to prompt the Rajasthan government to scout specifically for investments in such labs.

Agarwal said that finding investments for EV labs in educational institutions was an important state mission.

Sakka added, “An agreement has been signed with a start-up based in Rajasthan. The startup will be setting up EV labs to provide hands-on training to students. We are also now trying to get into the academic syllabus.”

As per news reports, Tata Power will invest Rs 1.2 lakh crore in the state’s renewable energy projects, including EV charging infrastructure and two-wheeler maker Hero Electric will set up a mega electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing plant with an investment of Rs 1200 crore.

Sakka, for whom the platform is a work of passion, is also building her own curriculum.

“With free materials available from IIT, IISC and universities from Europe I have also drafted a curriculum model to teach about the EV ecosystem,” she said. “It is a course designed on a holistic level with all the ground questions. Students are taught about actually designing an electric vehicle, about batteries, charges, charging station, the Indian standards and a lot more. In the next set of training we will be covering recycling as well.”

Why Rajasthan? NSDC on EV skill growth

The National Skill Development Corporation, which implements all initiatives under Skill India, has noted the growth in Rajasthan and also that some other states are catching up.

Ved Mani Tiwari, CEO, National Skill Development Corporation (Image: NSDC YouTube)

Ved Mani Tiwari, CEO, NSDC, explained, “The state [Rajasthan] has a well-established network of Industrial Training Institutes (ITI), AICTE-affiliated colleges, and UGC-recognized institutions, enabling large-scale skill development in the Electric Vehicle (EV) sector.”

He adds that Rajasthan’s closeness to Delhi-NCR further fuels the growth.

“Rajasthan plays a critical role in catering to the workforce needs of Delhi-NCR, a major automobile and mobility hub. Many trainees migrate to Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, and other industrial centers for employment, seeking upward mobility and better career opportunities. This geographical advantage, combined with state policies supporting EV adoption, has positioned Rajasthan as a key player in the evolving EV ecosystem,” said Tiwari.

NSDC Skill India: Which states are catching up?

According to the NSDC, while Rajasthan leads in EV skilling, several other states are rapidly expanding their EV workforce training programs.

“States such as Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab are emerging as key manufacturing and servicing hubs, catering to both domestic and export demand. In the southern region, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra are at the forefront of EV production, hosting major facilities for companies like Ola Electric, Ather Energy, and Tata Motors. These states are actively integrating skilled technicians into their manufacturing and assembly lines, boosting local employment,” said Tiwari.

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While states like West Bengal and Bihar are witnessing an increase in demand for EV two-wheeler and e-rickshaw servicing, creating a strong need for skilled service technicians.

“In the North-East, states such as Assam and Mizoram are benefitting from government incentives supporting EV adoption, especially in eco-sensitive regions. The EV skill ecosystem is expanding nationwide, ensuring that every region has access to quality training and employment opportunities in the evolving green mobility sector,” added Tiwari.

Arindam Lahiri, CEO of Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC), added that apart from service technicians, now there will be growing need on the manufacturing and engineering side of the EV ecosystems.

“There is a positive shift towards EV. It is believed that unless the new vehicle sale crosses the 10%, it is still at a nascent stage. But with two wheelers we are almost getting there. Right now, the choice in the market is very limited and only a couple of manufacturers have been doing it. But with manufacturers, including big players like Maruti, getting into the fray, it is expected to be a significant part of it,” said ASDC’s Lahiri.