Job training biggest challenge for govt

Identified by the Economic Survey providing new skills to India’s increasing employable population is the biggest challenge before the government.

Updated on: Feb 29, 2008, 24:12:24 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Providing new skills to India’s increasing employable population to make them eligible for emerging sectors was identified by the Economic Survey as the biggest challenge before the government.

If India fails to provide new skills to those between 15 and 64 years, whose percentage has increased to 68.4 per cent in 2006 from 62.9 per cent in 2001, unemployment would be a major reason for unrest, it has warned.

To achieve the target of providing skills to one crore people every year, Finance Minister P Chidambaram is likely to announce a Rs 300 crore Skill Development Mission in his budget speech on Friday.

In the 11th plan, Rs 22,800 crore would be allocated for the mission to start 50,000 skill development centres. The mission will have four sub-groups — training youth for industry, community training skills, for agriculture sector and tailor-made skill upgradation for specific industries like IT, Pharma and Auto sector.

The mission will cover 400 industrial training institutes, 20,000 schools and 5,000 skill development centres. It would develop skills of school students, those already in jobs and unemployed people, says the mission document.

The survey says Indians in the employable age group in coming years would have less dependants, thereby bringing in more prosperity. Lesser dependants because the average family size will reduce with lesser children but life expectancy would remain at the present 64 years.

This situation — demographic dividend — would help in growth of Indian economy provided right skills are provided to the youth.

The survey says the 11th plan document rightly points out that if we get our skill development act together we would be harnessing a demographic dividend.

The government believes that providing proper skills would help Indian youth fill the huge manpower gap in the global market.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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