Skill landscape in India

Interview with Navin Bhatia, MD- Navkar Skills

Curriculum What according to you are the top success stories of Skills in India
?
Navin Bhatia- The success stories are in the domain of fundamental skill architecture
building like creation of robust skill policy, creation 1100 NOS (National Occupational
Standards) by 25 Sector Skill Councils, NSQF (National Skill Qualification Framework) as
executive mandate, SDIS-MES scheme by Ministry of Labour, 1400 NCVT curriculum
designs role-holder-wise under MES & the New Apprenticeship act.
Curriculum- Are these success stories good enough to manage skill challenges
of India?
Navin Bhatia- Absolutely no. Indias skill challenges are enormous. We have26 million
youth entering job market every year & we skill only 07 million youth every year. Hence
challenge is to skill and certify youth every districts for employability (wage or self) .
CurriculumThan what are the key implementation challenges on the ground
because of which Indian Skill story has not taken off in the last 6 years ?
Navin Bhatia-Most of the experts and Government are in agreement on key
implementation challenges and they are1-No legal mandate for compulsory vocational education for students from class IX to XII
like it exists most of the European & ASEAN countries.
2-No skill labs at schools, skill centres or ITI to provide hands on practical training .
3-Lack of skilled & certified teachers and assessors across sectors at district and block
level in India.
4-No credible skill assessment companies with skill assessment centres and sectoral
assessors.
5-No legal mandate to hire only skilled and certified manpower
6-very sluggish demands for jobs across all sectors
Curriculum What are the core reasons for failure of skill companies across
India ?
Navin Bhatia- Top three reasons according to some PE firms & consultancy firms are
1-Business model errorous-65% of the students fee should have come from the self- fee
paid students & 35 % from the students under a government grant scheme but reality
today 95 to 100% student fee is coming from government grants. The gestation time to
payment schedules in government grant schemes are very long( 2 to 3 years) hence low
cash flow-low margin zero profitability trap which some skill companies have landed
themselves into.

2-No skill labs to impart hands on practical skill training leading to low practical job
related skills which leads to perception of poor quality skilled manpower in the eyes of
the employer& hence skilled workers do not command any wage advantage over
unskilled worker.
3- Unskilled and uncertified skill trainers who lack capability to impart hands on practical
training
Curriculum-Why Government grant schemes of various state and central
government not able to produce skilled and certified manpower?
Navin Bhatia-The fault lies in the basic thought process behind the scheme. The
government classic viewpoint is it is the responsibility of skill implementation partner to
invest in high cost skill labs(capital investment),mobilization of students ,customized
content creation, teachers selection-training-certification-motivation, students dropout
management-certification and placement management. The neo classic viewpoint
followed in Europe &ASEAN is it is the government that has to invest Capital in creation
of socially useful assets like skill centres and skill labs, Teachers training institutes etc.It
is time that Government schemes in skill development produce core assets to develop
practical hands on skills of youth of our country under Make in India-Skill India themes
Curriculum-Does nation have so much skill gap sector wise as projected by
NSDC surveys in 2008 and 2015?
Navin Bhatia-These surveys are not reliable and they have not withstood test of time. The
core reasons for these survey going haywire are Industry association sitting in plush
offices in Delhi in focus groups come out with some numbers of job projections which
have poor correlation at district level with jobs being produced by MSME sector. Let me
give you two examples to prove my statement. 37% of all the non -agriculture jobs
around 189 million jobs are produced by MSME sectors. Only 4%of the MSME firms are
either partnership firms or Pvt Ltd firms the rest 96% are proprietary firms whose data
base does not exist eg Government has no data base revenue-profit-number of
employees etc of 96% of the MSME firms which employ 19 crore people so how come
demand project can be arrived at without no historical data base. No one in the country
knows how many pan wallahs are there in UP.In the 2008 NSDC survey the nation had a
requirement of 107 lakh nurses & allied healthcare workers by 2022 and now the same
figure is 65 Lakhs.
Curriculum-Government & industry is planning to set up2500 multi sectorial
skill centre across India under Make in India-Skill India-Digital India .Will it
succeed &why?
Navin Bhatia-These are brilliant initiatives but success lies in detailing. Experts in the Skill
ministry should study implementation mechanism of these centres in context of ASEANEurope and then customized it as per India district-state MSME sector requirements. The
core pillars of practical training on skill Labs-Certified skill teachers-apprenticeship and
placements linkages with MSME should be detailed at each state level.
Curriculum-What according to you is the future of skill business. Will India ever
become skill capital of the world?
Navin Bhatia-Will be bright as youth wants to learn practical skills to get jobs or start
his/her own enterprise, if nation under Make in India is able to attract investment and

create 100 million jobs than India will be on the path to become skill capital of the world.
Right now we are at the tipping point we can go either way.