New Delhi: The government has disaffiliated 611 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) after an internal review revealed that these institutions recorded zero student admissions and remained non-operational between 2022 and 2025. These include 22 government ITIs, while the rest are private institutes.
The ITIs whose affiliation has been revoked include those which failed to run the third shift of the dual system of training (DST) despite being provided with adequate opportunities and timelines for compliance.
The review of the data on the government portal revealed that these ITIs had not admitted any trainees for four consecutive academic sessions from 2022, a senior government official told ET.
“The disaffiliation drive is aimed at ensuring accurate ITI data, optimising resource utilisation and facilitating the introduction of new-age courses as part of the modernisation of the ITI ecosystem,” said the official, who did not wish to be identified.
As per the existing guidelines of the Directorate General of Training (DGT) under the skill development and entrepreneurship ministry, trades and units with zero admissions for two consecutive years are liable for disaffiliation.
The government is confident that the disaffiliation will not result in a reduction of seats available for training.
“Even after disaffiliation of such non-compliant units, approximately 20 lakh seats remain available across the country, whereas the average annual enrolment in ITIs is around 14 lakh trainees,” the official said, adding that nearly 600,000 additional seats remain available nationally.
Further, the DGT regularly sanctions about 50,000 additional seats annually based on affiliation proposals received from ITIs and state or union territory directorates.
The latest available data shows a total of 16,802 units are affiliated under the third shift across ITIs. Among these, only 1,184 units or about 7% have been converted to DST mode, whereas 15,618 units (93%) continue to operate under non-DST mode.
According to the official, the objective of the initiative is not to reduce training opportunities but to enhance training quality, industry linkage, employability and practical exposure for trainees.
The government believes this will strengthen the vocational training ecosystem and contribute positively towards the creation of industry-ready skilled manpower in alignment with the objectives of Skill India.
