Council for Leather Exports, EPFO Jointly Holds Outreach Campaign on Job Opportunities for Leather, Footwear Sector
Chennai:
Port Wings News Network:
As part of the Government’s approach to realise the Prime Minister’s vision of Viksit Bharat @ 2047, the Ministry of Labour & Employment has launched 6 weeks nation-wide awareness and outreach campaign from 03 November 2025 for the PMVBRY for different sectors in collaboration with various Ministries which have high potential of employment generation.
In respect of Leather & Footwear sector, the outreach campaign is being held during the week 17 – 21 November 2025, in collaboration with Department of Commerce (DOC) & Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt of India.
The week-long outreach events for the leather and footwear sector have begun on 17 November 2025 with the introductory national webinar organized by the CLE in close coordination with EPFO, and this grand event saw the participation of about 350 participants in the webinar. In term of manufacturing units, there were about 50+ units of Leather & Footwear Industry from across the country have attended the National Webinar.
The Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India is implementing the Prime Minister Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana (PMVBRY) to promote employment generation, enhance employability, and strengthen social security across all sectors, with special emphasis on manufacturing and other labour-intensive industries.
The Union Cabinet on 1 July 2025 has approved the PMVBRY with an outlay of Rs.99,446.00 Crore and the scheme aim to incentivize more than 3.5 crore jobs in the country, over a period of two years – 1st August 2025 to 31st July 2027.
The scheme will provide incentive of upto Rs.15,000/- in two instalments to newly employed youth and upto Rs.3000/- per month per new employee to employers for creation of new job opportunities. The Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) is the implementation agency for the scheme.
As industry body and Export Promotion Council for Leather & Footwear Industry, Council for Leather Exports (CLE) has been tasked with the responsibility to organize the outreach events on the PMVBRY in the leather and footwear clusters in the country, and create awareness of the scheme and coordinate with the EPFO field offices and Industry units in the registration process of employees and employers under this scheme.
Rajendra K Jalan, Chairman, CLE has said ‘the PMVBRY would be boon to both employees and employers to get assisted under the scheme, and help generate additional employment opportunities in the sector. The scheme would accelerate the generation of new jobs across various segments of the leather and footwear industry and would encourage the employers to hire a greater number of workers in their manufacturing units’.
Ramesh Kumar Juneja, Vice Chairman, CLE has said ‘the present export from the industry is US $4.83 billion (FY 2024-25) and domestic market is worth around US$ 19 billion. As per the expectations, the export is poised to increase to US $ 14 billion (2029-30) and the domestic market would increase to US$ 36 billion.
With such high targets envisaged for the sector, the resultant increase would also take place in the employment generation capabilities of the sector. In this context, the Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana (PMVBRY) would be very helpful and would encourage the employers to provide more jobs and also a greater number of employees would get into this sector by virtue of the benefits given under PMVBRY to the employees.
The prominent amongst the participants are Shri Rajendra Kumar Jalan, Chairman-CLE, Shri Ramesh Kumar Juneja, Vice Chairman-CLE, Shri R Selvam, Executive Director, CLE, Shri Y P Dhewal, Director, Department of Commerce, Govt. of India, Shri Bipin Kumar, Under Secretary, Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Govt. of India, Shri Vivek Sharma, Footwear Design & Development Institute (FDDI), Noida, Shri Sanjay Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Leather Sector Skill Council (LSSC) and other dignitaries
Sudhir N Ganvir, Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, EPFO and Dr Jogender Singh, RPFC, EPFO along with field formations of the EPFO officials across the country have attended this webinar and interacted with the industry members. Shri Sudhir N Ganvir, Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, EPFO made a presentation on the PMVBRY and explained the salient features of the scheme, registration process, benefits to the employees and employers etc.
R Selvam, Executive Director, CLE has further added, ‘apart from the introductory national webinar successfully conducted on 17th November 2025, there are series of physical outreach meetings planned to be held in major clusters i.e., Kolkata, New Delhi, Chennai, Agra, Kanpur, Ambur, Mumbai and Jalandhar. I am sure that these events will help us take the PMVBRY scheme to the doorsteps of the target industry units and the eligible units would be able to register themselves under the scheme’.
The leather & footwear industry is MSME driven industry, with more than 95% of the manufacturing units are falling under MSME segment. The industry sub-segments are finished leather, leather footwear, leather goods & accessories, leather garments, harness & saddlery items, non-leather footwear and footwear components. The industry is predominantly located in Chennai, Ranipet, Ambur, Vaniyambadi, Dindigul, Erode (Tamil Nadu), Kanpur, Agra, Noida (Uttar Pradesh), Kolkata (West Bengal), Mumbai, Kolhapur (Maharashtra), Faridabad (Haryana), Jalandhar (Punjab) and New Delhi (NCR).
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