Honing Skills Of 40 Crore People, Where Lies Manipur?

S. Kunjabihari Singh *

This last 16 July, 2015, the PM in his characteristic charisma, more of zeal to initiate something new, something novel in the excessively trumpeted governance for the masses, launched Skill India Initiative. The two objectives highlighted were, i) Vocational Training to school leavers, existing workers, ITI graduates etc. to improve employability by optimally utilizing the infrastructure available in government, private and Industrial houses and, ii) Build capacity in area of development of competency standards, course curricula, learning etc.

We may recall with expressed interest, how the Modi government toyed with the grand idea of creating a separate and independent Ministry, the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship directly under him assisted by a Minister of State, in the person of Rajiv Pratap Rudy when he took charge of the Central Government early last year.

The Centre aims at imparting training over 40 crore people by 2022 thus honing the employability skill of these lower level workers. The more relevant issue is if this state, the so-called Sana Leibak would be prepared to tap the benefits of these maiden initiatives. Initiatives in terms of improved ITI's, infrastructures that include the buildings, more importantly, the laboratories to impart modern facilities. The facilities are both for government and private institutions.

The Centre is already going ahead in full swing in earmarking road map for select ITIs. Manish Sabharwal, Chairman of Teamlease Services and Member of the NITI Aayog Committee on Entrepreneurship and Skills has been optimistic to the extent of claiming, "In 2015 itself, top 20% of ITI graduates will earn more than bottom 20% 0f engineers."

This only proclaims the churning out of properly equipped, adequately skilled ITI pass-outs ready for joining the competitive job market. Continuing, he said, "Fixing the infrastructure of opportunity—India's 3Es of Education, Employment and Employability—can change lives in ways that no subsidy ever can."

I had a brief exposer to the administration of the ITIs in the late 2000's when new ITIs were set up in new places throughout the state. Tools and equipment had to be procured even before the sites, the buildings were in shape, and the reason was not far to seek. An elected government is invariably driven by more of a lust for procurement than of the genuine urge for delivering actual benefit to the trainees.

The selection of trainees and finalization of their fields of choice were again not commensurate with the need-based demand and the candidate's aptitude. There was huge mismatch between the market demand and candidate's choice of discipline. One major lacuna could be located in the fact that vocational policy and therefore roadmap was set in the Central Ministry while delivery systems are left to the states.

This kind of a policy- orphan coupled with the flaws in imparting skill given the lack of tools & machineries and basic minimum facilities greatly resulted to under-skilled graduates mostly un-employable by industries and others.

Vocational training that should include the ITIs is rated usually secondary and often meant for other people's children and not my or yours because of social signaling value in the society at large. Understandably, most of the aspirants happen to be college drop-outs, low-rated undergraduates who otherwise would not have much prospect in the job market.

To top up this problem of low quality students plus an economy where the demand for such vocational degree holders are not much in demand coupled with serious lack of an environment for taking up self-employment has resulted to surging unemployed in the state.

The Centre's core objective, as outlined in its National Skill Development Mission is ambitious, rather highly ambitious. It aims at, as the PM often talks about, making India as the Human Resources Capital of the world.

The initiatives include National Skill Development Mission (NSDM), National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY) scheme and Skill Loan Scheme. The launching of these newly coined, with high sounding catch-words appear attractive and is claimed to mark a first-ever World Youths Skills Day. Adding spice to the show, the PM also unveiled the Skill India logo with a beautifully crafted tagline—"Kaushal Bharat, Kushal Bharat" meaning, "Skilled India, Successful India."

The government's flagship scheme, PMKVY is expected to incentivize skill training by providing financial rewards to candidates who successfully complete approved skill training programmes. The scheme also aims at recognizing and providing skill to 24 lakh youth who lack formal certification, such as workers in the vast unorganized sector.

We may have quite a few such workers in the unorganized sectors like brick kiln, construction work etc. which employ a sizeable number of unskilled workers increasingly women. This category is noticed to have contributed to the SDP in the recent past. Taking advantage of this new PMKVY scheme, the productivity of these unskilled categories could be enhanced.

The PM had already awarded Skill Cards and Skill Certificates to trainees who had completed training through Pilot Phase of PMKVY started in May this year. Such Skill Cards and Skill Certificates will allow trainees to share their skill identity with employers. Across the country a whopping 2,33,000 youth were awarded certificates from it is and another 18,000 graduate students reportedly received job offers on the occasion of World Youth Skills Day.

The GOI talk about special camps organized at 100 locations with Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and a national SMS campaign is already rolled out to build awareness of the program, reaching about 40 crore subscribers.

The GOI also reportedly rolled out training in 1,000 centres across all States and UTs, covering 50,000 youths in 100 job rolls across 25 sectors. Through an initiative known as 'Recognition of Prior Learning' (RPL), 10, 00,000 youth across the country would be assessed and certified for skills that they already possess.

11 July, 2015 was observed as the World Population Day. This day seeks to raise awareness about issues related to demographics globally. This year the theme is, "Vulnerable Populations in Emergencies". At 5 pm, this day, the country's population reached 1.27 billion and accounts for roughly 17.5% of the total global population. India has 4 times the population of the USA, estimated at 320 million, packed in around one-fourth of the geographical area of the USA.