Skilling India-Initiatives to Create Global Workforce

Skilling is perceived by many as the last resort and meant for only those students who could not progress in a formal academic ladder. This mind set among the students and elders has increased the gap between industry demand and the qualified human resource from the institutions. With only 2.3 per cent of the total workforce in India having undergone formal skill training as compared to 68 per cent in the UK and 52 per cent in the US, the quantum of the challenge still becomes very high. After ‘Digital India’ and ‘ Make in India‘, the NaMo Government launched new programme, called ‘Skill India’-a multi-skill programme in 2015 to fill this gap. According to a skill gap study conducted by National Skill Development Council(NSDC) in 2014, there is an additional net requirement of 119.2 million skilled manpower in 24 key sectors by 2022. India is one of the youngest nations in the world with a very large pool of young English-speaking people as more than 62% of its population are in the working age group (15–59 years), and is expected to increase in the next decade. By 2020, almost 60 per cent of India's population of 1.3 billion will be in the working age group of 15–59 years, if adequately skilled this demographic dividend could make India a global HR powerhouse. The main objective of this paper is to study the initiatives of the central and state Government to meet the challenges of skilling. Secondary data from various websites, newspaper articles and journals was taken for the study. Hence the paper highlights the policies of the government's direction and the initiatives the educational institutions need to take towards skilling so that the youth enhances its employability quotient and also improves the entrepreneurship skill while they undergo a formal study.