Employment Opportunities and Skill Development under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan
Dr. Abhishek Chowdhary
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (Management)
Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR)
Department of Commerce,
University of Lucknow, Lucknow
writetoabk21@gmail.com
Amit Kumar
Senior Research Scholar,
Department of Business Administration,
University of Lucknow, Lucknow
amit.lu@outlook.com
Dr. Satya Prakash Pandey
Assistant professor
Lal BhadurShastri Girls PG College, Lucknow
satya307@gmail.com,
Abstract
Modern technology is growing at a breakneck pace, with new advancements arriving on a daily basis and altering established work practices. Due to constant process innovation and development, businesses have had to change and adopt new business models, creating a skill gap in which employees' talents do not match the skills expected by employers. On this ground, this paper traces the various programmes under Self-reliant India (Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan) initiative launched on 12 May 2020 by the prime minister. The study utilized exploratory data analysis (EDA) to examine the effects of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan on skill development, per capita income, and employment rates as event analysis was unreliable due to a lack of data before and after 2020. The study's findings showed that Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan helped increase skill development, per capita income, and employment rates. The effect was noticeable even after the initial shock of the COVID-19 outbreak. The study recommends that the only option for the Indian young to stay relevant in the ever-changing business landscape is for them to re-skill and up-skill. Many industries are seeing an increase in the need for trained workers. Our young workforce can transform present challenges into opportunities and become strong pillars of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat.'
Keywords: Self-Reliant India, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Skill India Mission, Employment Rate, GDP Per Capita.
Introduction
The expansion of one's skill set is crucial to the progress of society and the economy. As stated by the ILO,
"Education, vocational training, and lifelong learning are central pillars of employability, employment of workers, and sustainable enterprise development."
The talent gap is complicated by the fact that India's formal education system is not well aligned with the needs of the workforce. Considering that over twelve million youths join the workforce each year, the government must do more to enhance job opportunities in the nation. The talent gap is complicated by the fact that India's formal education system is not well aligned with the needs of the workforce. Shri Narendra Modi, India's Prime Minister, introduced the Skill India Mission in 2015 as part of his vision of assisting India in becoming "Atmanirbhar" which is self-reliant. The objective of this initiativeis to lead the country to growth by covering the gap between industry needs and skill sets required by providing a skill development training programme throughout the nation. Through Skill India, training programmes are made available which are curriculum-based and skill-based, and participants get certificates and endorsements from learning institutions that are acknowledged in the industry. One of the goals was to give both long-term and short-term skill training as well as job opportunities, as well as to integrate skill-based learning into the school curriculum.
Necessity for Skill India Initiative
Because India has the maximum youth population, with 75% of the population of working age, developing a skilled and educated workforce will be critical to the country's overall economic success. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there will be a skilled labour shortage of 29 million people in India by 2030. In 2030, more than half of India's youth will be unemployed, as 50 percent of the 90 million people under the age of 24 will be young. Lack of skills required to find work (Pandey, 2019).
Subsequently, Accenture predicted in 2019 that unless India took prompt action such as investing in the latest technologies or inculcating skills needed for the industry, the country's talent shortage would cost the country 1.97 per cent in GDP over the next decade. trillions of US dollars will be lost. The Government of India's 'Skill India Mission' aims at building practical vocational skills and, consequently, increasing the employment rate of the country.
The Mission has contributed to the expansion of employment since its inception. The employment rate increased to 37.9% in January 2021 from 36.9% in December 2020, and the unemployment rate decreased to 6.5% from 9.1% in December 2020, according to statistics from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE)(Kumar, 2021).
Skill India Mission
This initiative aims to teach more than 400 million individuals in the country a variety of skill sets required by 2022. The states with the highest training include Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Assam (Kalra, 2021).
Key Skills:
Apprenticeship Training – The scheme was designed to improve the country's apprenticeship chances by giving engineering graduates and diploma holders post-educational employment training.
Technical Intern Training Programme (TITP) –By promoting the exchange of knowledge, technology, and expertise among the participating nations, this project promotes international collaboration and aids in the growth of human resources. For a certain time (between three and five years), the programme offers students the chance to enrol in professional development classes in Japan's industrial society.
Online Skilling – The B2C e-learning sites which operate online as well as create and source e-learning content are linked via the "e-Skill" India portal.
Important Departments
The government of India has established several significant ministries, including the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) for youth employability through skill development initiatives, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), whose main objective is to catalyse India's skill landscape, and Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) for vocational education training, to conduct and promote various skill development programmes as part of the Skill India Mission.
Important Schemes:
Furthermore, the government has launched several essential programmes to guarantee that the 'Skill India Mission programmes are carried out successfully across the country. The details of such schemes are given below in Table 1.
Table 1 Key Schemes
|
Key Scheme |
Description |
|
Pradhan Mantri Kaushal VikasYojana (PMKVY) |
The PMKVY, JSS, and NAPS are being implemented nationwide by MSDE as part of the Skill India Mission. Up till February 2021, PMKVY 2.0 (2016–2020) agencies got Rs. 7,279 crores (US$ 977.40 million). |
|
Jan ShikshanSansthan (JSS) |
Underprivileged people (scheduled castes/tribes/minorities) receive vocational training with limited resources. Between FY19 and FY21 (February 23, 2021) JSS skill programs trained 6.68 lakh individuals. |
|
Integration with General Education |
The MoE, MSDE, and other administrative ministries are phasing vocational education programs into regular education. Over five years, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 aims to prepare 50% of general school pupils for VET. |
|
Pradhan Mantri YUVA (PM YUVA) Yojana |
This programme encourages entrepreneurship and offers convenient access to the network of entrepreneurs. Ten states are covered. |
|
SANKALP (Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion) |
The project will cost US$675 million, of which US$500 million will come from the World Bank over six years, until March 2023, in two tranches of $250 million each. |
Prepared by the Author; Source: (IBEF, 2023)
To support the District Skill Committees (DSCs), State Skill Development Missions (SSDMS), and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal VikasYojana, a regional workshop was conducted in Gangtok, Sikkim, for all the Northeastern Indian states.
A work platform called SAKSHAM was created by the Shramik Shakti Manch of “the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC)” in February 2021 to map the labour capabilities of "Shramiks" (workers) against the demands ofMSMEs to improve alignment and place ten lakh people in blue-collar employment.
A MoU between India and Japan was approved by the Union Cabinet in January 2021, laying the groundwork for a joint effort to guarantee the "Specified Skilled Worker" system's proper operation (SSW). This Memorandum of Understanding would provide both nations with an institutional framework for promoting the migration of brilliant individuals from India to Japan who has thenecessary skills (alongwith a fluency in the Japanese language) for working in 14 different areas of Japan.
Skill India Mission – Budget Allocation
The Union Budget for 2021–2022 included Rs. 2,785.23 crores for the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. From the total, the government set aside funds for the following initiatives:
Figure 1 Skill India Mission – Budget allocation
Source: Prepared by the Author using the data obtained from(IBEF, 2023)
To protect the country’s economy from the negative impacts of COVID-19, the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan was launched by our Prime Minister, which seeks to advance the Indian economy by making it self-reliant. However, meaningful social change won't be apparent until skill development is at the core of this massive endeavour. For India's young people, who will make up the future workforce, to succeed, they must be skilled, upskilled, and reskilled. Skilling does not get the attention it deserves, despite the fact that it is the most crucial. The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY 2016-2020) massive skill training endeavour is set to end, and it has taught around 73 lakh young people throughout the country to open up new opportunities for them. To minimise unemployment, the government should concentrate more on the skills needed in the industry being demand-driven, digital technologies, and other skills related to Industrial Revolution 4.0 in the next phase of PMKVY. India has the second-largest population and the greatest unemployment rate in the world(Shyamsukha, 2020).
According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, 33 percent of India's smart young were unemployed in 2017-18 as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Unemployment rate among the formally trained population (%)
Source: Prepared by the Author using the data obtained from (PLFS, 2017-18)
Furthermore, just 1.8 percent of the population had formal vocational/technical training, while 5.6 percent had informal vocational training, according to the poll. A vast majority of the population (93%) received no vocational or technical training in 2017-18. More than half of those who did not work but had formal vocational/technical training were young (15-29 years), while 62.3 percent of young people did not get such training and were unemployed.
Figure 3 % population that received formal vocational/technical training across age groups Source: Prepared by the Author using the data obtained from(PLFS, 2017-18)
Training facilities are insufficient in as many as 20 high-growth sectors in India, according to the NSSO, including logistics, healthcare, construction, hotels, and automobiles. There are around 5,500 public (ITI) and private (ITC) institutions in India, compared to 500,000 in China. In comparison to India's 4% of officially educated vocational personnel, Korea's workforce has a vocational education of 96 percent. Even developing countries, such as Botswana, had an astonishingly high score of 22 percent.
To shield the country's economy from the harmful effects of COVID-19, the Prime Minister of India established the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan on May 12, 2020, intending to advance the Indian economy by making it self-sufficient. Figure 4 shows that real per capita GDP (in Rupees) and its growth rates increased even after the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, which began on January 27, 2020, in Kerala, India.
Figure 4Real Per Capita GDP
Source: Prepared by the Author using the data obtained fromhttps://dbie.rbi.org.in/DBIE/dbie.rbi?site=publications#!2
The same picture is noticed in Figure 5 for employment rates in India.
Figure 5 Employment Rates (%)
Source: Prepared by the Author using the data obtained from https://www.globaldata.com
In 2021, India's employment rate was 46.3%. In 2021, the indicator rose by 5.2% from the previous year. The indicator went down by 13.3% between 2010 and 2021. Between the years 2010 and 2021, the employment rate in India peaked in 2010. In 2020, it hit a new low. The employment rate is the ratio of those actively seeking work to those who are currently employed. Employment rates are determined by dividing the total population by those of working age. A high employment rate is indicative of a healthy job market, whereas a low rate may point to underlying problems in the economy. Hence, overall a positive impact of Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan is noticed in employment rates.
Re-skilling the youth
There is now a possibly fatal situation as a result of the current pandemic. It represents the low-skilled labour class in India. The future positions cannot be managed by us at this time. To train our employees for future jobs, we must also upskill them. In addition to investing in the reskilling and upskilling of young people throughout rural India, large corporations must expand their operations outside of big cities to small towns and villages. This would significantly contribute to the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative's success. Despite the fact that more than 1.28 crore children received education via the Skill India Initiative, only 56% of graduates found employment with an average monthly salary of between Rs 10,000 and Rs 18,000 after finishing training programmes.(Kalra, 2021)
Conclusion
The objective of this study was to examine the effects of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan on skill development, per capita income, and employment rates using the exploratory data analysis (EDA) as event analysis was unreliable due to a lack of data before and after 2020. The study's findings showed that Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan helped increase skill development, per capita income, and employment rates. The effect was noticeable even after the initial shock of the COVID-19 outbreak. To further boost the impact of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, individuals in the business sector should stand up and give training, emphasising the need to be vocal about local goods and services and enabling the young to support the local economy. The government's first move is to execute the National Education Policy by 2022. Putting this into effect is challenging enough. It has the capacity, however, to drastically alter the present educational system. The consequences of this technique will be felt for decades. By providing money for the development of fundamental, secondary, and advanced skills as well as recognising industry requirements, the government must continue to support the PPP model in the interim. A skill management information system, which would combine the supply and demand for skilled labour and bring all skills together in one ecosystem on a single website, should be developed by the government as well. Identifying skills is pivotal to developing them. When it comes to teaching people how to use different software and coding languages, there is a lot involved. Apprenticeships, or on-the-job skills training, should be simplified further in school so that businesses can happily take apprenticeships.
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