“On-job training, industry partnership, and alignment of courses with needs of industry will be emphasised. The scheme will also cover new-age courses for Industry 4.0 like coding, AI, robotics, mechatronics, IOT, 3D printing, drones, and soft skills,” she said, while presenting the budget. She also said 30 Skill India International Centres would be set up across states to train youth and make them ready to grab international opportunities.
These measures can make India the skilling capital of the world, says Rajesh AR, CEO of Labournet Services India. He confesses he was happy to read these announcements. “There is an aging population in Japan and other countries. They don’t have skilled manpower. Our workers can get premium wages in these places if they are trained properly. India can, thus, be a good source for workers for these international centers. It is a welcome move,” he says.
These steps are being taken at the right time to help the youth find job opportunities and to help the country grow, say industry players.
Sumit Kumar, Chief Business Officer, TeamLease Degree Apprenticeship, is confident that this will be a positive move towards job creation. “This budget is like a booster dose to make the most of the situation. I think taking the macroeconomic situations into consideration, and having a long-term perspective to make a $5-trillion economy, these measures will take care of such goals. We are seeing the rural economy improving, capex going up. So more jobs will be created. To cater to that, we need skills and this Budget has taken care of the skilling side,” he says.
Kumar is particularly optimistic about the announcement to recruit 38,800 teachers and support staff for the 740 Eklavya Model Residential Schools, which will serve 3.5 lakh tribal students.
The budget had also announced a unified Skill India Digital platform for enabling demand-based formal skilling, linking with employers, including MSMEs, and facilitating access to entrepreneurship schemes.Lohit Bhatia, President, India Staffing Federation, says the government’s move under the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme was worthy of appreciation. “It’s interesting to note that the government will provide subsidy support to companies bringing in apprentices and will provide stipend support to 47 lakh youth in three years through Direct Benefit Transfer.”
He says that these schemes are essential to bring informal workers into the economy and that the Economic Survey released on Tuesday showed the system works. “In the last seven to eight years, since the skilling ministry and NSDC was formed, across different skilling initiatives, over 2 crore people have been skilled in India. In PMKVY 2.0, about 1.1 crore people were skilled and in PMKVY 3.0, about 7.4 lakh people were skilled,” Bhatia says.
Highlighting a point from the Economic Survey that 41% of new EPFO additions were from expert services, which include staffing and security services, he says: “It is clear that job creation is happening at the crucial bottom of the pyramid in both blue- and grey-collar jobs, i.e., workers in the Class X, XIII or diploma categories. Such personnel are transitioning from either erstwhile informal employment or rural/farm sectors. The skilling ecosystem support will be key to transitioning these personnel smoothly. With this, we will be able to add another 100 million into the formal workforce over the next decade,” he adds.
However, says Kumar of TeamLease, the key to the success of these schemes will be in its implementation. “That’s going to be the litmus test. Earlier, we’ve seen a couple of skilling schemes doing well but these still underperformed the expectations. So, I think, today, we need to learn from our past and try to implement or improve on them,” he adds.
