The Centre has approved a Rs 240.5 crore Strategic Investment Plan for the Cuttack ITI Cluster under the Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs (PM-SETU) scheme, bringing five government industrial training institutes in Odisha into a hub-and-spoke modernisation programme with the Tata Steel Foundation.
The approval was granted during the sixth meeting of the National Steering Committee, chaired by Debashree Mukherjee, secretary in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The committee approved financial support for five new ITI cluster proposals across Odisha, Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir.
Under the Cuttack cluster plan, Government ITI Cuttack will serve as the hub institution. ITIs at Choudwar, Paradeep, Jajpur and Dhenkanal will operate as spoke institutes within the cluster. Officials said the programme will modernise training infrastructure and introduce courses aligned with industry requirements and emerging technologies.
The investment comes as Odisha continues to expand industrial activity across steel, manufacturing, logistics, ports and infrastructure. Officials and industry stakeholders have identified the availability of skilled manpower as a key requirement for supporting this growth. The cluster model is intended to allow multiple institutes to share institutional capacity while linking training more closely to local industrial demand.
The PM-SETU framework is designed around collaboration between state governments, industry partners and ITIs. Its stated objective is to transform conventional training institutes into modern skill centres capable of preparing workers for changing workforce requirements. For the Cuttack cluster, the hub-and-spoke structure places the principal administrative and training role with Government ITI Cuttack while connecting it to institutes in surrounding industrial and employment corridors.
The locations included in the cluster cover a varied economic geography. Choudwar and Jajpur are associated with industrial activity, Paradeep is a major port and logistics centre, and Dhenkanal forms part of Odisha’s broader industrial belt. The approved plan therefore connects training capacity across institutions serving manufacturing, transport, port-linked and infrastructure-related employment markets, although the specific courses and implementation schedule were not detailed in the announcement.
The latest approvals take the cumulative investment cleared under PM-SETU to Rs 3,687 crore nationwide. The National Steering Committee also reviewed progress under the scheme’s training-of-trainers component. According to the Centre, 3,744 people had been trained through National Skill Training Institutes under that component till October 2026.
The Cuttack cluster’s next phase will depend on how the approved investment is translated into upgraded facilities, new course delivery and coordinated operations across the five participating institutes. The Centre’s announcement establishes the financial approval and institutional structure; details of project execution and timelines were not provided.
