Our PM is not so lucky this time.

I remember our Prime minister saying that he is lucky that the crude oil prices have come down. So his opponents should not have any problem in that. But it seems our Prime Minister is not so lucky this time. If PM Modi's luck should be credited for the fall down of oil prices, his luck can be equally criticized for the deficient rainfall and the drought in the country.
However any person, including our PM, can not be held responsible for the natural phenomena like rainfall and drought. But there should be a concern for the poor farmers whose crops has ruined in the most of the parts of the country. The increasing figures of farmer suicide reveal the real scenario of the farmers in the country.
Beyond agriculture, deficient rainfalls have a greater impact on the economy of the country. Due to poor rainfall this year, especially in the later half of the monsoon season, most of the dams of the country are emptier than normal level of water. As a result, an irrigation and power crisis looms.
Government figures updated until Wednesday show the country’s 91 big reservoirs had a total of 95.313 billion cubic metres of water in them — just about 60 per cent of the total capacity of these reservoirs. The total storage is 23 per cent less than the normal storage expected at this time, normal being the average of the last 10 years. The worst situation is in the 31 reservoirs of southern India, which are together filled to only 35 per cent of their capacity. These should normally be filled to 81 per cent of their capacity at this time. Last year, these were filled to 72 per cent of their capacity.
The basins of the Ganga, Indus, Narmada, Mahi, Sabarmati, and the rivers of Kutch are carrying normal levels of water. However, the Godavari, Mahanadi and Cauvery, and the west flowing rivers of the South, are highly deficient.
Indian Meteorological department made a forecast way ahead that this year there will be deficient rainfall. Instead of that, finance minister said that it is not going to have any effect on the economy. It would have been better of the government that keeping the forecasts of the IMD, they have prepared a better plan to handle the present situation. Deficient has already started showing its ill-effects on the economy and crisis is going to loom further. 

National Skills mission: Skill Development in India

India has the unique advantage of demographic dividend of its working age population as compared to the developed countries in the world. The demographic dividend can provide a comparative advantage and competitiveness to the economy. The government has been taking proactive efforts to fill the existing gap and skilling person-power in order to reach at an advantageous position nationally and internationally.

The currently size of India’s formally skilled workforce is 2 percent whereas smaller counties like South Korea and Japan skilled workforce size is 96 percent and 80 percent respectively. Skilling workforce and using it in productive work is a great challenge before us because the skills if not used are lost. India has a shortage of skilled workforce. The shortage is attributed to lack of a formal vocational education framework, with wide variation in quality, high school dropout rates, inadequate skills training capacity, negative perception towards skilling and lack of Industry ready skills even in professional courses.

Sluggish growth of employment is a cause of concern which is evident from the fact that the CAGR of employment was decelerated to 0.5 % in the year 2011-12 from 2.8 % in the year 2004-05. Besides change in environment status and unemployment status of the population, there has been structural changes across the sector which is evident from the fact that the share of the primary sector in total employment has declined from 58.5 percent in 2005 to 48.9 % in 2011-12 whereas it has been increased in the secondary and tertiary sectors to 24.3 % and 26.8 % respectively in 2011-12 from 18.1 % and 23.4 % respectively in 2004-05.

Efforts towards Skill Development

It is not that no efforts have been made toward skilling person-power in the country. Some of the recent initiatives taken in this regard are the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP) and National Skill Qualification Framework. A Exclusive department of skill Development and Entrepreneurship has been created under the Ministry of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs and Sports to zero in on quality skill development and innovations in the country.

The government has a target for training 10.50 lakh youth and giving placement to 7.87 lakh candidates under Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Koushalya Yojana (DDU- GKY), a placement linked skill development Scheme for rural poor youth.

National Skills Mission

India has historic opportunity to transform its demographic surplus into a demographic dividend. In a series of governmental effort, National Skills Mission will has been launched by Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry with the purpose to consolidate skill initiatives spread across several Ministries and allow government to standardize procedures and outcomes across 31 sector skill councils.

To conclude, National Skills Mission would converge the efforts of different ministries and missions to bring synergies in process for better outcomes. Convergence would be the main mantra to harness the benefits of different stakeholders at macro, meso and micro levels.