Union Minister of Finance Pranab Mukherjee has said that there is an urgent need to speed up the setting up of Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) in order to meet the requirement of skilled human resource in the country. He urged the industry associations like ASSOCHAM, CII and FICCI to take a lead in identifying sectors which need skilled labour on a priority basis. He said that the Government would continue to focus on Skill Development in the 12th Plan as well.Mukherjee said this while meeting the Indian participants at the London World Skills Competition. The 16-member Indian contingent that will represent the country at the biennial World Skills Competition, being held in London from October-5-8, 2011.
Speaking on the occasion, Pranab Mukherjee said, “NSDC had been mandated by the Government to skill / up-skill 150 million people by 2022 in partnership with the private sector and the Corporation is expected to meet the skill training requirements of labour both in the organized and the unorganized sector.”
NSDC had been set up to upgrade labour force skills especially for underprivileged sections of society and in backward regions of the country by involving the industry in a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework. He said that investment in human capital was vital for improvement in labour productivity, to sustain high growth over extended periods of time.
The Finance Minister was pleased to know that as of August, 2011, NSDC had approved funding for 39 projects which would skill 57 million persons in the next ten years by creating capacity of 11.3 million per annum at full scale.
