India plans to create 150 mn skilled workforce by 2022

NEW DELHI - The National Skill Development Corporation, a joint venture between the government and industrial associations, targets to create 150 million skilled workforce in India by 2022 for sustaining high economic growth, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Monday.

“We have a challenging target of creating a skilled workforce of 150 million persons by 2022. We have to take action to achieve this target by ramping up the capability of the NSDC. The movement is in the right direction,” Mukherjee said at a meeting with top NSDC officials here.

He urged the private institutions to play an active role in skill development.

Referring to a study conducted by ICRA, Mukherjee said incremental skilled workforce requirement in 20 high growth sectors and the unorganised sector in India would be 240-250 million till 2022.

“It is indeed going to be a challenging task to bridge this skill gap. Obviously, government alone cannot achieve this target. So far participation of private sector in skill creation has been more or less limited to IT sector. I am happy to note that the NSDC has taken a leap forward in mobilising private initiative in other sectors also,” he added.

The NSDC has been established under the 11th Five Year Plan to create a pool of skilled workforce in line with the industry requirements.

Industry associations, including the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), are developing various projects across the country to help create the required skilled workforce.

Eight projects related to skill developments are underway. The FICCI has proposed to start 4 Sector Skill Councils during 2010-11. It will be in retail, food processing, media and entertainment and tourism and hospitality sectors.

The CII has a plan to start 10 skill development centres during the current financial year.

The finance minister said the NSDC should ensure the employability of trained individuals.

“This must remain the focus area in all the proposals and projects being developed and financed by the corporation. At the same time, it is also important to generate monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, which will ensure that the progress made on the ground in linking the unorganised sectors with the needs of the industry, is tracked and updated on a regular basis,” Mukherjee added.