Fixing The Skills Deficit

India Has Embarked on the World’s Biggest Skill Development Programme. Can This Bridge the Talent Gap?

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

When Shruti Malik drives past farmland being ploughed on the outskirts of Yamunanagar, Haryana, she has reason to feel proud. She knows one of the men on the tractors at work was once her student at IRIS Learning, the skilling institute she runs in the town, which has so far trained 2,400 young people in sugarcane cultivation, polyhouse farming and the use of different kinds of agricultural implements. After a month-long training stint at IRIS, Rakesh Sandhu bought a tractor with a loan from the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojna – a scheme to facilitate micro business ventures begun in 2016 – which he hires out (with himself as driver) for a fee to farmers around Yamunanagar who need their fields ploughed.

“After the training, my students command a premium,” says Malik. “Many of them are in great demand in neighbouring districts as well.” Malik herself quit her job with Sapient Nitro in Gurgaon within six months of joining to pursue her dream of becoming an entrepreneur. IRIS Learning, which she set up in 2015, is one of the 4,526 skilling centres in the country which partner with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) – under the National Skills Qualification Framework – to combat India’s gigantic skills shortage. Apart from agriculture-related skills, IRIS also provides training for prospective electricians, fitters, mobile phone repairers and more. “I don’t regret my decision to give up my well-paying job at all,” she says.