The government is collating the rise in the number of skilled persons in the country since the launch of the flagship Skill India programme, following on from efforts to tally jobs.
The move for creating a data portal was triggered after cabinet secretary PK Sinha started conducting monthly review meetings in January on the number of skilled personnel, thus bringing all central ministries on board to converge their skilling programmes.
Around 12 million youth enter the country’s workforce every year but a large chunk of them are unemployable because of poor skillsets, which is why it’s a key thrust area for the government. Skilling the new entrants while upskilling and reskilling the existing workforce will mean there will more employable people in the country, which in turn will add to job numbers, lift incomes and boost growth.
At the launch of the Skill India programme in 2015, the government had targeted training over 400 million people in different skills by 2022. However, barely 40 million have been trained by different stakeholders since then, 25 million of them by the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship. The government will soon launch the national skills portal that will have skilling data from all central ministries, states and corporates, a senior official told ET.
“The first phase will be launched on July 15 and, over a period of time, when all stakeholders are on board, it is estimated that the number of skilled personnel could go as high as 15 million a year against 10 million estimated by the skills development ministry,” he said. This will act as a boost for the government ahead of polls next year as the jobs issue has been haunting it and it aims to make India the skill capital of the world.
Skill training is imparted by not just the ministry of skill development but also over a dozen other central ministries besides states and companies and the numbers are not reported on any common platform. “The comprehensive data on the portal is expected to have twin benefits,” said the official cited above. “Firstly, we would get total number of skilled personnel in the country on a real-time basis and secondly this would help in de-duplication so that resources are not wasted.”
energy impart skill training, taking the total estimated number to 10 million a year. ‘Under the flagship PMKVY launched in 2015, close to 5 million candidates have been trained across the country at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore. The target is to
According to the official, the cabinet secretary has directed the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship to converge all skilling data across sectors, gender, social and geographic landscape to assess demand and supply for the skilled workforce. “The national skills portal, which is being developed by the National Skills Development Corp. (NSDC) and the World Bank, will help to address the mismatch between the existing pool and the fast-changing skill sets required today,” the official said.
The skill development ministry says it trains 6 million youth a year through Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), apprenticeship programmes, the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) and fee-based NSDC training. Besides, other central ministries such as agriculture, rural development, textiles, electronics and IT, human resource development and new and renewable train 10 million youth by 2020 at an estimated cost of Rs 12,000 crore.

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