The Minister of State for Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs and Sports, Sarbananda Sonowal, on Friday said that his ministry is committed to work towards the development and execution of programmes that would ensure that the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for skill development is achieved.
"The MSME Ministry has a number of skill development programmes which are appreciated and supported by the industry by providing employment to those who have passed out from these institutions. One such example are the tool rooms. Many of you have indicated that the number has to be increased. Our government is committed to expand the number of tool rooms in the country," Sonowal said in his speech at the first Mega MSME Fair and the session on Enterprise and Skill Development.
Sonowal, who was the chief guest on the occasion said, it is a well known fact that appropriately skilled workforce is one of the biggest impediments for growth of MSME sector and competitiveness.
"Given the training needs of incremental and existing MSME workforce, skill development capacity needs to be scaled up and traditional skill delivery models and approaches need to be overhauled and aligned with requirements of unorganized workforce as well as MSME employers," he added.
Sonowal said skill development initiatives need to be integrated with secondary and intermediate level education.
"This will address the challenge of low education levels and also provide school dropouts with employability skills. Increased awareness of new employment opportunities based on industry requirements in domestic and international markets should be done to encourage youth to pursue non-traditional vocations. The government will take forward the implementation of the National Skill Qualification Framework," he added.
Sonowal said the MSMEs have been accepted worldwide as the engine of economic growth and for promoting equitable development.
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"MSMEs constitute over 90 percent of total enterprises in most of the economies. They are credited with generating the highest rates of employment growth and account for a major share of industrial production and exports," he said.
Sonowal further said the MSMEs play a pivotal role in the overall industrial economy of the country in India too.
"It is understood that there are 44 million MSMEs in the country accounting for almost 90 percent of the workforce of the country in the non farm sector and more than 80 percent of the total number of industrial enterprises in India," said Sonowal.
"In terms of value, the sector accounts for 45 percent of the manufacturing output and 40 percent of the total export of the country and employs over six crore people, easily the single largest contributor in terms employment generation in the manufacturing sector. The major advantage of the sector is its employment potential at low capital cost (skill development)," he added.
Sonowal further said that on an average four persons are employed per manufacturing MSME.
"MSMEs have a higher Labour to Capital ratio than large enterprises. This is due to higher employment in MSMEs because of low levels of automation and technology deployment," he added.
Sonowal said one aspect often overlooked in rightfully optimistic conversations about demographics, industry and growth is that the number of local entrepreneurs being created every year in India is very low.
"According to a World Bank study on Entrepreneurship in 2010 which compares the new business registration density of South Asian countries with the rest of the world, it was found that contrary to popular belief, India has too few entrepreneurs for its stage of development, even compared to countries such as Thailand, Brazil and Malaysia," he added.
Sonowal said the link between entrepreneurship, regional development, and job creation is very strong.
"But there is huge variation in entrepreneurship across states in India. Some critical factors that affect overall entrepreneurship are education and skill levels, quality of local physical infrastructure, household banking quality, business environment and investment climate," said Sonowal.
"This has been understood by our Government and a number of initiatives and reforms have been put into motion over the last 100 days. The Prime Minister in his Independence Day address stressed on the need to "Make in India" and to quote "Millions and Millions of Indian youth should go for acquisition of skills and there should be a network across the country for this and not the archaic systems. They should acquire the skills which could contribute towards making India a modern country. Whenever they go to any country in the world, their skills must be appreciated," he added.
Sonowal said that he wants to create a pool of young people who are able to create jobs and the ones who are not capable of creating jobs and do not have the opportunities must be in a position to face their counterparts in any corner of the world while keeping their heads high by virtue of their hard work and their dexterity of hands and win the hearts of people around the world through their skills.
"We want to go for the capacity building of such young people. My brothers and sisters, having taken a resolve to enhance the skill development at a highly rapid pace, I want to accomplish this," he added.