Thursday, 1030 h 19 Mar 2015

SKILL DEVELOPMENT AS A STRATEGY TO REAP DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND

SHRI ATUL BHATNAGAR

A growing economy and increasing globalization are

expected to cause a surge in workforce requirement in

the next decade across various skill levels. The

Government and partner agencies deployed for executing

the skill development agenda have identified sectors with

the potential to create high employment in the near

future. Addressing gaps in the skill development

framework in these sectors, coupled with the provision of

effective employment, will be particularly useful to

ensure consistent development of the economy.

The five sectors that are expected to create the

majority of jobs are infrastructure, auto, building and

construction, textiles and transportation.

India needs to impart vocational training to at least

300–350 million people by 2022 to cater to domestic

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requirement and also to serve as an effective manpower

hub globally. This figure is significantly lower than the

government estimate of 500 million. It is important to

achieve the target without diluting training quality and

ensure placement prospects. Therefore, a meticulous

execution of the country’s revised skill development

agenda, taking global requirements into consideration, is

the need of the hour.

The contemporary focus on skill building or skill

development in India is derived from the changing

demographic profiles in India vis-à-vis China, Western

Europe, and North America.  These changing

demographic profiles indicate that India has a unique 20

to 25 years’ window of opportunity called “demographic

dividend”.  The “demographic dividend” accounts for

India having world’s youngest work force with a median

age way below that of China and OECD Countries.  Thus,

the “demographic dividend” in India needs to be

exploited not only to expand the production possibility

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frontier but also to meet the skilled manpower

requirements in India and abroad.  Demographic dividend

is essentially due to 2 factors: (a) Declining birth rate and

(b) Improvement in life expectancy.

To reap the benefits of “demographic dividend”, the

Eleventh Five Year Plan had favoured the creation of a

comprehensive National Skill Development Mission.  As a

result, a “Coordinated Action on Skill Development” with

three-tier institutional structure consisting of (i) PM’s

National Council (ii) National Skill Development

Coordination Board (NSDCB), (iii) National Skill

Development Corporation (NSDC) was created in early

2008.  Whereas, Prime Minister’s National Council on

Skill Development has spelt out policy advice, and

direction in the form of “Core Principles” and has given a

Vision to create 500 million skilled people by 2022

through skill systems. "Reaping the demographic

dividend needs a vision, a long-term plan, and bold

decisions.

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To tell us more on the subject, we have with us

today Shri Atul Bhatnagar.

Shri Atul Bhatnagar is quintessentially a banker,

with over two decades of experience in global banking

business. He has worked in 3 major international banks -

Citibank in India, HSBC in Dubai and Barclays in Kenya.

He is a Mechanical Engineer from the prestigious

Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He did his MBA

in Marketing & Finance from the Indian Institute of

Management, Calcutta.

During his stint in Barclays Kenya, Shri Atul won the

‘Male Diversity Champion’ award picked from among

1,500 nominees from the bank’s global pool.  He also

bagged an award for the ‘Best COO in Africa’. He helped

his bank bag the ‘Best IT Bank’ award given by Business

Journal Africa, which also featured him on the cover of

their July 2011 issue.

After spending nearly a decade and half outside

India, Shri Atul found his ‘home calling’ when the

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opportunity to work in the National Skill Development

Corporation came up in March of 2013.  Since then his

mind and soul are into nation building, working towards

achieving a target of skilling 150m Indians by 2022.

Now I invite Shri Atul Bhatnagar to address

55th NDC.

*****