109 mn job seekers need to upgrade skills: Badal

Around 109 million new job seekers have to upgrade their skills, while another 460 million people have to be re-skilled and up-skilled by 2020, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said here on Monday.

"India remains an unskilled nation, lagging far behind other countries in skill development because much care has not been taken about the issue after independence," Badal said while chairing the sub-group of chief ministers on skill development.

"Therefore, about 109 million new job seekers have to upscale their skills while another 460 million people have to be re-skilled and up-skilled by 2020," he said.

Badal is the chairman of the sub-group constituted by the Governing Council of the NITI Aayog in February to address issues pertaining to human resources, especially youth and to work on scientific methods on moving towards creating a pool of skilled manpower.

He observed that despite India having the youngest population, the country has just 12 percent of skilled workforce.

"This has added to the unemployment problem and a major issue for the country."

The right to skill should be made a law in the same lines as the right to information, right to food and right to education, so that people are competitive in the global market, he said.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said the meeting was an opportune moment for integrating creative and practical ideas from various states, specially to up-skill the young generation.

He said the northeastern states face the same challenges of providing jobs to the unemployed youth. In spite of giving skills, there were challenges of placement.

Sangma said the idea of skill development should be integrated from the school level.

Arunachal Chief Minister Nabam Tuki apprised the meeting of the skill development programmes undertaken in his state since 2012, and its plans to have an ITI in every district with job-oriented courses.

Representatives from other member states -- Mizoram, Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Chhattisgarh, Sikkim, Manipur, Odisha, Bihar and Puducherry -- also spoke about their initiatives on skill development and the challenges faced.

NITI Aayog CEO Sindhushree Khullar urged upon the member states to send their suggestions, saying the more practical their views the more they were likely to be implemented.

She said three issues discussed in the meeting -- construction workers, agar plantation and apiculture -- would be pursued further by the NITI Aayog.