Unemployment is one of the features of underdevelopment countries, but India is no more an underdeveloped country. However, the problem of unemployment persist in the country on a very large scale. Various factors are responsible for this unemployment and leads to problems, including poverty, health issues, exploitation of resources and unsocial activities. Due to unemployment, the energy of the youth is getting diverted towards unsocial activities.
They potential of the youth is being used in mischievous/evil activities as they have no job and an idle mind with certain needs motivates people to cause evils and perform illegal or criminal activities.
In order to prevent our productive, talented, desirable and capable youth from getting into evil activities, governments should provide them employment. As we know, the majority of India’s vast population is of youth between age group of 20-35 years, which is a working age. It is quite not possible to give employment to each and every youth because of huge population and lack of capital resources. Therefore, the Indian Government keeps introducing new programmes from time to time for addressing the problem of unemployment such as TRYSEM, MNREGA, JRY, EAS, STEP, Startup India, Skill India and so on.
The paper mainly focuses on women and unemployment. Women play an important role in society as well as economy, yet, their potential, capability and skill remained underestimated. As studies and survey display, the participation of women in the aggregate work force remains low for a long period of time now.
The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has identified a few of the major challenges that need to be addressed for building a conducive ecosystem of skill development for the women workforce. These are as follows:
(1) A large number of women need to be trained since currently, only 2% of the female workforce is formally trained
(2) Inadequacies in the quality and relevance of TAVET (Technical and Vocational Employment Training in India
(3) Inadequate infrastructure, acute shortage of trained women workers, poor quality of training
(4) Lack of mechanisms to judge and certify quality
(5) Inequity in accessing TVET for women
(6) Women trainees with a law-level education background that limits the training of women in the formal sector
(7) A lack of recognition of prior learning of potential women trainees
(8) Relatively high opportunity cost of learning involved for training women.
The major challenges noted here are only a few in number but represent a complexity of issues involved. Additionally, it is argued that the empowerment practice has to go beyond its focus on women to gender. A focus on gender would imply an emphasis on strategic needs such as leadership and advocacy, rather than a simple focus on basic needs. The concept of gender will also encourage an understanding and analysis of power relations, and enforce the idea of developing capabilities, than simply skills.
No doubt, the Indian government has launched a large number of schemes to eliminate unemployment from the country. It is quite pertinent to mention that the Indian youth or labour is hard-working, talented, dedicated towards their job and ready to work, despite the fact the question still exists: Why does unemployment remain the biggest problem for our country?
The uneducated or rural people are not just suffering from unemployment, the educated and urban people are equally suffering from problem. The schemes introduced to carve out or tackle this problem are performing very poorly due to lack of proper implementation and accountability.
India is one of the few countries in the world where the working age population will be far in excess of those dependent on them and, as per the World Bank, this will continue for at least three decades till 2040. This has increasingly been recognised as a potential source of significant strength for the national economy, provided we are able to equip and continuously upgrade the skills of the population in the working age group.
The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship takes a multidimensional view of the term ‘skill’. ‘We recognise the fact that ‘skill’ has both intrinsic and instrumental value. Possessing a skill can be an end in itself – giving individuals greater self-confidence, self esteem and dignity, which results from the knowledge that they can stand on their own feet.
A skill can also be a means to an end. It can a tool that helps individuals realise their aspirations by pursuing better jobs that lead to stability and a sustainable livelihood. Skilling is a lifelong process, hence, skill upgradation and reskilling are fundamental components of the skilling cycle. The Ministry also sees a close connection between skilling and entrepreneurship.
Women Entrepreneurship
Women entrepreneurship has been recognised as an important source of economic growth. Women entrepreneurs create new jobs for themselves and others, and also provide society with different solutions to management, organisation and business problems. However, they still represent a minority of all entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs often face gender-based
barriers to starting and growing their businesses — like discriminatory property, matrimonial and inheritance laws and/or cultural practices; lack of access to formal finance mechanisms; limited mobility and access to information and networks, etc.
Women entrepreneurship can make a particularly strong contribution to the economic wellbeing of the family and community, poverty reduction and women empowerment, thus contributing to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Thus, governments across the world as well as various developmental organisations are actively undertaking promotion of women entrepreneurs through various schemes, incentives and promotional measures. Women entrepreneurs in the four southern states and Maharashtra account for over 50% of all women-led small-scale industrial units in India.
Skill India Programme
Now, for eliminating unemployment, creating the jobs and establishing self-employment, Prime Minister Modiji took the initiative in the form of Skill India in July 2014. Skill India is a flagship initiative of the government of India that is intended to build an environment of becoming an entrepreneur, and providing jobs that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large-scale self employment and employment opportunities.
Urgent and effective action to Skill India is needed to capture the demographic potential of India’s youth. Based on data from the 68th Round of NSSO, it is estimated that only 4.69% of India’s total workforce has undergone formal skill training. Through this scheme, the government aims to empower people to enhance their talent or skill and establish their own business or get into the jobs.
The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) will take care of coordination of all skill development efforts across the country, removal of disconnect between demand and supply of skilled manpower, building a vocational and technical training framework, skill up-gradation, building of new skills and innovative thinking not only for existing jobs but also jobs that are to be created.
Powered by the National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and backed by several government, industry bodies and a host of training partners, Skill India Campaign aims to skill 402 million people by 2022. The emphasis is to skill the youth in such a way so that they get employment and also improve entrepreneurship. Provides training, support and guidance for all occupations that were of traditional type such as carpenters, cobblers, welders, blacksmiths, masons, nurses, tailors, weavers etc.
More emphasis will be given on new areas like real estate, construction, transportation, textile, gem industry, jewellery designing, banking, tourism and various other sectors, where skill development is inadequate or nil.
National Skill Development Programme
The National Skill Development Mission (NSDP) was approved by the Union Cabinet on July 1, 2015, and officially launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister on July 15, 2015, on the occasion of World Youth Skills Day. The Mission has been developed to create convergence across sectors and states in terms of skill training activities.
Further, to achieve the vision of Skilled India, the NSDP would not only consolidate and coordinate skilling efforts, but also expedite decision-making across sectors to achieve skilling at scale with speed and standards. Seven submissions have been proposed initially to act as building blocks for achieving overall objectives of the Mission: (i) Institutional Training, (ii) Infrastructure, (iii) Convergence Trainers, (iv) Overseas Employment, (v) Sustainable Livelihoods and (vii) Leveraging Public Infrastructure.
It will be implemented through a streamlined institutional mechanism driven by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. An entrepreneurship development scheme is currently being developed by the Ministry. The scheme is being designed around the following major elements:
- Educating and equipping potential and early stage entrepreneurs across India
- Connecting entrepreneurs to peers, mentors and incubators
- Supporting entrepreneurs through Entrepreneurship Hubs (EHubs)
- Catalysing a culture shift to encourage entrepreneurship
- Encouraging entrepreneurship among underrepresented groups
- Promoting entrepreneurship amongst women
- Fostering social entrepreneurship and grassroots innovation