India, in terms of progress, has always been on a roller coaster that only goes up. India is one of the fastest growing growing economies in the world today. This is because progress, to India, is the progress of its citizens. To achieve the desired goals, the betterment of citizens is a mandate and to do that, the availability of every service, opportunity and perks to every individual is necessary. Indian mindset falls in line with the ideology that better people make a nation better. Keeping these things in mind, national policies are formulated. A National policy is basically a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by the state to achieve its objectives.

In this article, we’ll discuss another major policy of India:

National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

India, a nation growing so fast, has a lot of potential for the age group of 19-50. Although we are growing at a fast rate overall but there is a lack of a constructive thinking in youth too. The pundits suggest that in the next 20 years, the labour force in the industrial sector is expected to decline by 4% whereas in India it will increase by 32%. This can be fruitful as well as lethal at the same time due to the high population of India and to reap its benefits, India requires to enhance the skill sets of its citizens and provide opportunities to people so that individual as well as national development may not stop.

The National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship can play a vital role in this as it can act as an employer to the youth and at the same time it can help in catalyzing the economic growth of the country. During the recent years, especially the ones after 2010, there has been a wave of growth in this sector and this led our government to make changes in previous policy and introduced an upgraded and a better National Skill Development and Entrepreneurship policy in 2015 .

The basic features of this policy as stated by the government are:

• Integration of skilling in the formal education by introducing vocational training classes from class nine onwards in at least 25% of the schools.
• Instituting of National Skill Awards.
• Leveraging of existing infrastructure for skill training and targeting a tenfold increase in apprentice opportunities in the next five years.
• Special attention to the youth residing in the border, hilly and difficult areas, including North Eastern states, Jammu and Kashmir and the hilly forested areas of central and eastern India.
• Promotion of skilling, as well as entrepreneurship among women, has been given high importance.
• National Skill Development Fund will be utilized for the implementation of skilling efforts.
• Companies will be encouraged to spend at least 25% of their Corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds on skill development.
• Encouraging entrepreneurship among the underrepresented groups.

The adoption of this policy has encouraged youth to with different perspective towards life where they can start something on their own and be an employer instead of being employees. Due to this policy, the subsidy schemes have been started for small level businesses and the public is now moving towards skill development and entrepreneurship.