With India transforming into one of the fastest-growing economies, skill development and job creation have become natural tools to ensure sustainable growth. The Skilling India aims at capability building by providing training and skill development to 500 million youth of our country by 2022 covering each and every village. Various schemes have been proposed to achieve this objective.

There are an estimated 139 million migrants in the country and due to the pandemic and the lockdown, about 400 million workers would be poverty-stricken. The role of skill development becomes vital in order to train the labourers and to provide them with jobs according to their skills.

To discuss on the current scenario on skill development and catalyze the initiatives, the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) organized the “Knowledge Management Virtual Meet & Awards Skilling & Vocational Training – A step towards Atma Nirbhar Bharat” recently.

Bharat Jaiswal, Regional Director, ASSOCHAM set the context for the speakers and attendees consisting of academicians, policy advocates and industry experts to the virtual event which offered an opportunity to discuss the issue of ‘skilling’ from multiple perspectives.

The Chief Guest for the occasion, Droupadi Murmu, Governor of Jharkhand, in her address, mentioned that the Atmanirbhar Bharat is an important initiative and requires the partnership of many different sets of people for success.

The Guest of Honour, Nawab Malik, Minister for Minority Development, Auqaf, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Govt of Maharashtra, in his address emphasized that skill development initiatives need practical models and technology to achieve the set goal.

Talking on employment generation, Dr Jitendra Das said that getting away from import – focusing on export and generating employment are the key elements of the Atmanirbhar Bharat.

It is the right time to focus on the decentralization of large factories and moving on to the concept of OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturing). Traditionally large manufacturing units having large numbers of employees and workers concentrated in a particular area need to be split into multiple remote locations in order to provide opportunities to locals making them Atma Nirbhar.