Crores under PMKVY went to bank accounts with zero or fake numbers, CAG flags discrepancies

The well-celebrated scheme Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) of the government to impart skill-based industrial training has been found to be mired in controversy, as a performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) revealed multi-level discrepancies including fake or unverifiable bank accounts of beneficiaries, duplication of photographs, invalid or repeated mobile numbers, absence of objective assessment of market demand, and delays in the release and utilisation of funds.

The audit, which examined the functioning of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and State Skill Development Missions in Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, was tabled in Parliament during the winter session, and it has raised fundamental questions about the integrity of a scheme that was launched in July 2015 and has since consumed nearly Rs 4,450 crore of public money, according to The Wire.

Between 2015 and 2022, three phases of PMKVY were rolled out with the declared objective of training and certifying 1.32 crore candidates through a system in which 75 per cent of physical and financial targets were assigned to the NSDC and 25 per cent to the states, although the CAG found that this decentralised structure had failed to ensure either accountability or data reliability.

One of the most serious findings related to beneficiary records, as the audit of PMKVY 2.0 and 3.0 data showed that in 94.53 per cent of cases, covering more than 90.66 lakh of 95.90 lakh participants, the bank account details were recorded as zero, null, ‘N/A’ or left blank, even though valid accounts were mandatory for the Rs 500 Direct Benefit Transfer payment to each certified candidate.

Even among the remaining 5.24 lakh entries where some account number was provided, the audit detected large-scale duplication and obvious falsification, as 12,122 account numbers were repeated across 52,381 participants, while many supposedly unique accounts were recorded as sequences such as ‘111111’, ‘123456’, or even as names, addresses or special characters, which meant that the data provided no credible assurance about the identity of beneficiaries.

Although the ministry told the auditors that Aadhaar-linked payments later made the collection of bank account numbers redundant, the CAG found that in 2023, only 25.58 per cent of candidates had their DBT payments processed, and only 18.44 per cent were successful, while even by October 2024, just 63.75 per cent had been paid.

The digital trail of the scheme was found to be equally compromised, as email fields were filled with entries such as abc@gmail.com, 123@gmail.com or strings of zeros, while 36.49 lakh candidates were tagged merely as ‘migrated data’, and tens of thousands of mobile numbers were either too short, repetitive or began with invalid digits, which continued even in the latest October 2024 dataset.

The CAG also uncovered blatant manipulation of photographic evidence under the Recognition of Prior Learning component, as the same images were used to certify different batches in different states, including by a now-defunct entity, Neelima Moving Pictures, which had certified 33,493 employees across eight states despite not being traceable during the audit.

Beyond data fraud, the audit pointed to weak programme design, as training was not aligned to assessed market demand, and although 56.14 lakh candidates were certified across 724 job roles, nearly 40 per cent were concentrated in just 10 roles, while the overall placement rate remained only 41 per cent.

In states such as Bihar and Odisha, even basic placement strategies mandated by the guidelines were either not prepared or were drafted without assessing employment potential, which contradicted the ministry’s claim that COVID-19 alone had depressed outcomes.

Financial management was equally troubling, as Rs 277.40 crore, or 20.09 per cent of funds released to states between 2016 and 2024, remained unutilised, and even before the pandemic, only Rs 149.85 crore of Rs 757.82 crore released had been spent, which together suggested that PMKVY’s celebrated promise of skilling India’s youth had been undermined by systemic failures at every level.