Skill Development--Lava to create 1 lk jobs, Microsoft to train 35k youths

NEW DELHI: After Digital India, Smart Cities, Make in India, ‘Skill Development’ seems to be the latest headturner for the India Inc.

The launch of “Skill India” on Wednesday was a step towards making country’s over 10-lakh youths employable by imparting them job related training. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that over the next decade India will have a surplus manpower of 4-5 crore and emphasised the need to provide this youthful manpower with skills and ability to tackle global challenges.

On this regards, Hari Om Rai, Chairman and Managing Director, Lava International, promised for builsing job potential for 1,000,00 youths and said: "The National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship comes at the right time to not only provide an impetus but also streamline processes and functions. This will ensure that the efforts undertaken by various corporates, departments and ministries are aligned to deliver on the expectations from this program."

However, he also highlighted that it is a challenging task especially with only 2.3 per cent of the total workforce in India having undergone formal skill training as compared to 68 per cent in the UK and 52 per cent in the US but it’s a step in the right direction. "We feel that this policy along with Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana & skill loan scheme will play a crucial role in bridging the demand-supply skill gap and raise the bar of skilled labour in India. We are committed to this initiative and aim to create employment potential for 100,000 people. At Lava, we believe in empowering people by providing them the right platform to do more & be more thereby promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship.”

Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India, was of the view that: “The launch of Skill India Mission today marks a renewed effort to capitalize on India’s demographic dividend and create a large pool ofskilled workforce in India. This is crucial to support growth across sectors and the economy, at large.

The launch of a skills mission of this scale will make the training efforts more systematic and will ensure a workforce which is professionally skilled and meets industry needs. We believe that private sector participation can complement the government’s skill development mission. At Microsoft, we have always been focused on enhancing skills and competency in India and contributing towards building a strong workforce of skilled professionals.

Our digital literacy, skill building and entrepreneurship programs have touched 5 crore people in 20 states across India over the last decade. Continuing this commitment, we will soon commence a large scale digital literacy project under the global Microsoft YouthSpark program for marginalized communities, with a special focus on girls and young women. This program will run across 70 YouthSpark-Project Jyoti centers and is expected to train more than 35,000 young people in the next 18 months.”