From Congress to regional parties like Trinamool Congress and the communists – everyone seems to be skeptical.

“Given the size of the country and the huge number of unskilled population, addressing skill development is a big challenge in India. The Modi government is unable to take initial baby steps towards making India a skill hub,” says CPI (M) Member of Parliament, M B Rajesh.

Both he and several communist and Congress leaders point out that India suffers from acute job shortage and much of this is “due to policy problems” at the official level.

Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia says, “problems are quite complex. There is also problem of work culture and ample avenues at village level. I doubt how much they can deliver. Prime Minister Modi is expert in creating smokescreen about development”.

The Modi government seems to be aware of the challenges. “One big challenge is creating aspiration in the youth for skills,” says Minister for Skill Development Rajiv Pratap Rudy adding the skill development in today’s world cannot be left as an exclusive domain of the government alone.

“The industry needs to do it part more by starting recognising the issue and hiring the skilled workforce,” Rudy told this magazine.

But such talks are only one part of the issue in the debate. In fact, India’s unemployment and all employment-related problems are linked to qualification based or certificate-based problems.

“So much emphasis is being laid to the so called qualification-certificates that efficiency and skills are never examined. There is huge bureaucratic approach to everything. Almost every hiring done in India uses education and qualification as a proxy and bad replacement for skills and efficiency,” says businessman Ajay Sabherwal in North Delhi.

This revives the debate about the Skill Development – so much in public talks ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the discussions in public discourse.

“The skill development as a facet of work culture and industry culture needs to bridge the gap between demand and supply. To skill 40 crore people by 2022 requires strong synergies with the stakeholders,” underlines Rudy.

But rhetoric don’t work on the ground.“If people try to link it to mere certificates from ITI-type institutes with an official stamp of the ministry of Skill Development, the very purpose of the mission envisaged by the government will fail,” says BJP MP Jagdambika Pal

In today’s fast-changing ‘marketplace’, the twin prime-drivers are knowledge and innovation. For instance, he says, without value-added propositions and sufficient product knowledge resellers of any IT gadgets and mobile handsets will be mere box-pushers. But the socio-economic and even political foundation for skill development has been quite weak in the country.

India’s job creation ability has been very poor and all blame could not be attributed at the door steps of the government or the ministry of Skill Development.

In last three decades, studies claim the country has created only about seven million jobs every year.

India needs over 23 million jobs annually and in the last 30 years; the country has created only about seven million jobs every year.

Certainly compared to China or the United States, Indian statistics are much bleak. Only 2 per cent of Indian workers are formally skilled – meaning less than 10 millions. In vocational courses, while China has over 90 million figures per year, India has a modest 5.5 million per year only.

But the Modi Sarkar wants to act quickly on Skill development as various studies reveal this facet is linked to actually changing the economic scenario.

Thus, according to Skill Development ministry proposals, the government has already created a roadmap. The steps include among others –

Setting up of country’s first skill development university in Maharashtra.

The government will set up 100 ‘Model career centres’ by April 2017 under the National Career Service, an online portal.

To read the further article please get your copy of Eastrn Panorama April issue @http://www.magzter.com/IN/Hill-Publications/Eastern-Panorama/News/ or mail too contact @easternpanorama.in