The right skill takes you places – professionally. The last six days of the Make in India Week (February 13th-18th) was proof enough to show that India has woken up to address the skill issue. With more than a lakh professionals at the Skill India Pavillion and there were about 5000 supporters who pledged for #ISupportSkillIndia at the venue. Supporters included a good mix of industries and companies, state government officials, NGOs and individuals.

There was huge engagement seen on Skill India which saw around 15000 conversations with a total reach of 10 million (1 crore) on social media.

Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge) said, “It is very fulfilling to see such great response from industries and individuals towards Skill India at the Make in India week. This has proved to be a great platform for us to educate many on the skill ecosystem and how they can be a partner to us or understand the Qualification Framework/Curriculum we follow.The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), the Sector Skill Councils (SSC), the affiliated partners and the existing DGT network with the opportunities explored at Make in India, will further work together to strengthen the skill ecosystem and galvanising all towards one common goal of Skill India.”

Getting the reality check, manufacturing currently contributes about 13% to the GDP of the country, about 50% of the overall exports and 12% of the workforce in the India. However, the share of manufacturing in the GDP at 13% is amongst the lowest as compared to many rapidly developing economies. The sector as a whole has been facing shortage of skilled manpower and this factor needs to be given serious consideration if manufacturing was to achieve the growth planned over the next 5 year period.

The Minister also stated that an event of this magnitude extends great opportunities to many and should be done timely and across regions at different scales. An analysis of the skill gap across various sub sectors in manufacturing indicates that the sector will need 97 million skilled workers in 2022. For the plan period 2013-2017, the demand for skilled workers in the sector will increase from 60 million to 74.86 million. The sub-sectors included under the manufacturing sector include Textiles, Food processing, Auto and Auto Components, Leather and Leather goods, Gems and Jewellery, Construction Material and Building Hardware, Electronics, Pharmaceutical and Chemicals, and Furniture (Source: NSDC’s sector wise skill gap reports 2013).

S Ramadorai, Chairman, NSDC and NSDA said, “This is the time when Skill India and Make in India can work in conjunction in one ecosystem and create a new India. We have to ensure that we scale up all efforts with great speed while we maintain top standards. We are happy to see the response from all, in the last one week and NSDC will continue to further bolster all efforts towards one skill mission."