Impact of skill development programs in India – A case of Bandhan's employing the unemployed program (EUP) and recommendations for further improvement for such programs

This paper presents the impact created by skill development-employment programs running in India on its beneficiaries. The paper focuses on not only how these employment programs affect income related issues of a candidate, but also on how they help in their personality and social development. For this analysis, one of the premier skill development-employment programs running in the country was chosen, i.e. EUP – Employing the Unemployed Program. It is a development program by Bandhan Konnagar (not-for-profit entity of Bandhan Financial Services Private Limited). The problem of youth unemployment has been recognised as an aspect of the national unemployment problem. The central paradox is that while the country faces a shortage of skilled personnel on the one hand, there is widespread unemployment of the ‘educated’ on the other. Considering the fact, Bandhan found the importance of skill development among youths to combat unemployment and launched its employment program -EUP in the year 2009. The paper's agenda is to analyse the socio-economic impact created by EUP in the lives of the beneficiaries which involves study of financial development, personality development, changes in the employment sector, changes that occurred in the social relationships, lifestyle changes, and the quality of the jobs that the beneficiaries got under EUP. Beside this, the aim of the paper is toprovide recommendations for the betterment of these kinds of skill development-employment programs running in the country. For this the loopholes existing in the program were found out by comparing the scenarios of the dropouts with the successful beneficiaries. And thus the research presents the importance and suggestions for the improvement of such skill development programs.