Since time immemorial, India has been known for its affordable labour. And while there’s no shortage of labour in the country, the scarcity of skilled labour is visibly apparent—as companies are unable to meet their own demand for well-trained human resources.
Despite being blessed with one of the youngest populations, it’s painfully becoming obvious that India lacks the basic infrastructure to empower the youth with essential skills to excel in an increasingly demanding global economy.
However, there is reason to believe that this is set to change with the government’s progressive initiative, Skill India, which can tackle this skills gap. By developing specialised training programmes and initiatives, the government aims to elevate India’s manpower productivity.
The country’s incumbent education framework does little to equip the youth with relevant skills to help them excel on a global scale. Now, with an increasingly globalised Indian economy, it’s evident that new job opportunities will rely heavily on specialised skills to improve the quality of production. The shortage of skilled manpower creates a huge void in our current structure, which needs long-term correction if India is to emerge as a growing superpower in a skill-essential world. The need to equip employable Indian youth with appropriate vocation education and training has never been more urgent than now.
The government’s Make in India and Skill India initiatives form an immaculate union, because one cannot exist without the other. Make in India is set to equip the country with best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure to attract all types of companies from around the world. Skill India aims to train over 500 million youth by 2020 with over 5,000 skill development centres and 1,500 ITIs.
By equipping the Indian workforce with the right training and opportunities, a new skilled workforce will emerge—placing the country firmly on the path to becoming a global manufacturing hub. But this colossal task isn’t without its challenges—it requires strong collaboration between diverse groups of stakeholders that will assist the government in their mammoth endeavour.
The finance minister raised an interesting point—the rise in wage rate in China has made manufacturing in that part of the world costlier—presenting India with a huge opportunity to create world-class manufacturing infrastructure right here. Equipping India’s workforce with requisite skills is the best chance to elevate the country as a force to reckon with in the global manufacturing industry.
The current share of manufacturing in our GDP is not enough, especially when compared to the more developed nations—so we know there is a huge scope to move ahead. India has a significant advantage over comparable developing economies—it is already equipped with good human resources and a large number of English-speaking people, so the cost of training an entire workforce to produce a global manufacturing hub is not unreasonable.
A CII and BCG survey, carried out in the latter half of 2014, captures this manufacturing dream aptly—querying over 100 of India’s top honchos regarding their estimation of the country’s manufacturing scenario. A whopping 85% believed that manufacturing is expected to grow between 5% and 10% in the next five years, compared to 3.4% in the last five years.
The task of skilling India’s employable workforce is far too challenging for the government to undertake on its own.
Training the second largest population in the world is simply impossible to be undertaken by a single body; we must open the gateway for private participation. Private partnerships may just be the answer the government is looking for when it comes to reaching all sections of our complex geography. A mutual goal is the key to putting India on the fast track to manufacturing success. Private firms can create robust curriculum structures, provide better infrastructure, deliver improved funding and implement government policies effectively—developing strict standards of manufacturing excellence and production quality to create a new set of highly-skilled workmen that India has desperately needed, but never had before.
Efforts are already under way by private enterprises to make a strong impact on creating a skilled Indian workforce.
For instance, Viztar International is involved in consulting and transformational training, and has leveraged its NGO-division Global Success Foundation to provide skilled training to over 2 lakh people in different cities in Gujarat in an effort to bridge India’s employability gap. The company has collaborated with a multitude of education and training institutes such as the NSDC and the Retailers Association’s Skill Council of India to deliver vocational training across semi-urban and rural regions. The organisation has successfully coached and this has resulted in employment for over 200 village youth in Dholka in Ahmedabad.
The manufacturing vision has opened up a whole new world for the country. The goal to transform India into an upbeat and low-cost manufacturing hub has redefined the way we do business. By improving quality, efficiency and productivity, there is a prodigious opportunity that beckons—an opportunity to create mass jobs and effectively eliminate poverty—something we have failed to do for decades, even centuries!
Private organisations must find a way to meet the objectives of the government to bring the vision of Skill India to life. Strong initiatives are integral to creating the right infrastructure ecosystem for building a young and skilled Indian workforce. Once we have managed to fully tap the unexploited manpower potential India has to offer, can we call ourselves a global leader in low-cost innovation—usurping both Germany and China in quality and cost, respectively.
The author is founder & chief mentor, Global Success Foundation