Press Release

Belthangady: The concept of Rural Development & Self Employment Training Institute [RUDSETI] caught the imagination of planners and policy makers like no other private initiative has done before. The Ministry of Rural Development, GOI accepted RUDSETI as a replicable model and advised all the nationalized Banks to set up one Rural Self Employment Training Institute [RSETI] in each of their lead districts, to address the un-employment problem in the country by enabling the unemployed youth to take up self employment. State Bank of India, the biggest Bank in the country with lead bank responsibilities in 149 districts i.e., almost 25% of the total districts in the country has so far established 108 RSETIs and efforts are on to set up RSETIs in other lead districts also.

In order to understand the gaps in the functioning of RSETIs, the Government of India,at the advice of Dr D Veerendra Heggade, requested all Banks to hold 2-day Conclave of the Directors of RSETIs sponsored by them. Accordingly, a 2-day Conclave of all the 108 Directors of RSETIs promoted by State Bank of India was held in Hyderabad on 16th and 17th July 2012 to review the performance of the RSETIs and to identify the gaps in the functioning of the RSETIs and to plan strategies for bridging those gaps. The Conclave was inaugurated by Sri V Murali, Dy Managing Director of SBI. Sri M. V. Rao, IAS, Director General, NIRD Hyderabad delivered the key note address and Smt. Renuka Kumar, Dy. Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development presented a paper on the Expectations of the Ministry from all the stake holders in taking RSETI movement forward. Sri J K Sinha, Chief General Manager,Dr. V. Eswaran, General Manager, Sri Vijay Kumar, DGM and Sri K N Janardhana, Chief Project Co-ordinator, Monitoring Cell for RSETIs spoke on the occasion. Sri Girish Pande, General Manager and Principal SBIRD co-ordinated the entire event.

On the 2nd day of the Conclave, Dr. D. Veerendra Heggade, under whose leadership the RUDSET Institutes were established way back in 1982 was present in the Valedictory function. Sri Heggade, Dharmadhikari of Dharmasthala and also the Chairman, National Advisory Council for RSETIs spoke at length about the genesis of RUDSETI 30 years back. He fondly recalled how the first RUDSET Institute was started in 1982 in a humble way in a small village called Ujire near Dharmasthala jointly by Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Trust, SyndicateBank and Canara Bank. The success of Ujire experiment was motivating and reassuring and has culminated in establishing 26 RUDSET Institutes across 16 States so far. Dr Heggade felt happy that a big bank like State Bank of India has taken the RSETI movement with all seriousness and this has created very good impact on other Banks to follow suit. By establishing 108 RSETIs and many more to open shortly, the contribution of SBI to the development of the nation is immense, noted Dr Heggade.

Dr. Heggade added that even with globalization and advancement in technology, only the educated class are able to enter the job market whereas the school drop outs and under educated youth who form large section of the society still remain unemployed or unemployable.  It is in this context that RSETIs can play a vital role in showing the unemployed youth the right direction in their life so that they can start some self-employment ventures and stand on their own.

Concluding his valedictory address, Dr. Heggade complimented the State Bank for conducting the conclave in a professional way and hoped that true to the tradition of State Bank, the SBIRSETIs would take the lead and set bench marks for all other RSETIs in the country.