Govt needs CEO for manpower mission

The government is looking for a private sector executive to lead the National Skill Development Mission, an ambitious Rs 15,000-crore project that will be run by a non-profit corporation to facilitate the addition of 10 million trained manpower annually in the country.

The project is aimed at meeting the manpower requirements of India's rapidly growing economy, which currently faces a huge skill deficit at all levels of the job chain.

The mission, which is expected to start functioning in four to five months from now, will be chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who will head an "apex committee" with Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia as the vice-chairman. The committee will consist of the labour minister and the human resource development minister.

"Both the structure and the leadership of the mission must be such that the programme can be scaled up quickly to cover the whole country," Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said in his recent Budget speech. (Later, he told an industry gathering that the mission would be headed by somebody from the private sector.)

When asked, Planning Commission member Balchandra Mungekar, who has been instrumental in preparing the mission blueprint, said: "He or she (who is selected to head the mission) will function like a Chief Executive Officer. The details are yet to be worked out."

"The person should be highly knowledgeable with practical orientation, competent, as well as extremely professional in attitude and functioning," Mungekar added.

A proposal for the Cabinet is under preparation. When asked whether the Chief Executive Officer-like post would need Cabinet approval, government officials added that it would depend on the kind of status that is attached to the post.

"If the Chief Executive Officer's basic salary is above Rs 18,400, then it would need prior Cabinet approval," an official said.

The mission will be a market-driven programme, and not a state-driven one. "The private sector would be instrumental in preparing the curriculum for various courses under the mission," Mungekar added.

Chidambaram intends to garner about Rs 15,000 crore as capital from governments, public and private sectors and bilateral as well as multilateral sources for the mission.

To begin with, Budget 2008-09 has allocated Rs 1,000 crore as the government's equity in the proposed non-profit corporation.