PM instructed ministries to prepare their skill development plans

Indian PM, Manmohan Singh

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Indian PM, Manmohan SinghConcerned over the state of skill development, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh today has asked the ministries to arrange plans for the next year with special focus on satisfying needs of minorities, SC, ST and backwards.  

Preside over a meeting of the National Council on Skill Development, he has asked his Cabinet colleagues to hub on sectors like infrastructure, real estate, auto and auto components, textile, healthcare, retail and logistics.

Singh asked ministers to believe the skilling needs of people belonging to SC, ST, backward classes, minorities, women and those with disabilities. His remarks come at a time when elections have been publicized to five state assemblies, including Uttar Pradesh.

“I must say our hard work on skill development side so far have been rather tentative. We cannot let this state of affairs persist,” he said. The time is suitable to set ministry-wise targets for skill growth in the run-up to the Union Budget in mid-March, he said.

Skill obligation studies estimate that India will require around 26 crore skilled people by 2018 and around 34 crore by 2022, he said adding that there was a need to supply quality training to around eight crore people in the next five years.

“There is a important gap between the prerequisite and the supply which unless checked will constrain our economic growth,” he said. Singh has also called upon the ministries to work closely with the states and to allow them to select preparation providers and trades and create a decentralized approval instrument. The Prime Minister said with its youth bulge, the country can reap a demographic dividend provided that the youth are educated and possess skills required for earning a decent livelihood.

“We have the serious confront of providing quality education and skills to about 85 per cent of the people aged  between 15 and 59 years, who acquire less than 12 years of education”, he said.

“A social and economic policy of inclusive expansion cannot ignore the fact that a significant quantity of India’s citizens are forced to take up amateurish work because they lack the education and skills required for taking up economically and professionally rewarding employment,” he said.

Singh said that while the government has set determined medium and long term targets for skill development, there is a need to see that the plans are backed by matching expends “Naturally, we cannot achieve our goal with a ‘business as usual’ approach,” he said.

He called winning the central ministries to scale up their skill development programs substantially and propose ambitious skilling initiatives in the 12th Plan (2012-17). “In the background of the 12th Plan that is being written, an inter-ministerial group has been set up recently to suggest appropriate strategies to achieve the task of transformational up scaling of skills.

“I hope that the group would be able to speedily confirm its report, so that it may act as a major input related to skill development in the 12th Plan document,” Singh has told.

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