A recent move by the Finance Ministry has come as a surprise. It has allotted Rs.1,804 crore for skill development programmes against an amount of Rs.8,062 asked by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. While the Centre is talking big on skill development and publicising several initiatives for this purpose, the drastic and "unexplained" slashing of the funds has in fact took even the parliamentary standing committee, which looks into the budgetary allocation for the skill development ministry, by surprise. One can hardly disagree that skill gap is a major challenge facing us and now the Finance Ministry's decision will hardly help the cause.
Prime Minister Modi, while launching the National Skill Development Mission last year, said that India would have a youthful manpower of 4 to 5 crore over the next decade, but at the same time -- stressing the need for skill development -- he cautioned that our demographic dividend would otherwise become a challenge in itself. This fear seems very rational in light of latest data released by the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) that shows that only 7.6 million people were trained by central ministries and departments for the year 2014–15. At this rate we will never be able to achieve the target of training 500 million people by 2020.
In other words, the line between demographic dividend and demographic disaster has already started getting thin and in this situation the Centre's focus should be on pushing skill development by every means, including adequate funding support. It is true that the current government, from the very beginning of its term, has identified skill development as one of its major focus areas. A dedicated Ministry has been formed; several key programmes and missions have been launched. But it is difficult to forget that the previous government also talked the same talk on skill development, without achieving much. Concrete action must follow the Centre's reiteration of skill development commitments.
A recent report -- which points out that our economy could employ less than half of 300 million people who entered labour market during 1991- 2013 and that the country would face a serious challenge of finding jobs for 280 million more people who will enter the job market by 2050 -- shows that unemployment has remained a lingering problem for us, but it is more concerning to see that we have been suffering the brunt of unemployment even at a time when every sector is short of skilled workers. This reflects a dire need not only to inject adequate funds but also to chart out a radically new path on skill development.
I invite your opinions.
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