Govt to launch national data portal to tap number of skilled Indians

The government is planning to launch a national data portal to tap the number of skilled people in the country under its flagship Skill India programme, reported The Economic Times.

The move will help the government bring all central ministries, states and corporates on board to converge data on skilled persons across sectors. The portal will cover data across gender, social and geographic landscape to assess demand and supply for the skilled workforce.

“The first phase will be launched on July 15 and, over a period of time, when all stakeholders are on board, it is estimated that the number of skilled personnel could go as high as 15 million a year against 10 million estimated by the skills development ministry,” a government official told the paper.

In India, around 12 million youth join the country’s workforce every year, but a large chunk of them are unemployable because of poor skill sets. The motive behind such a move is to skill and reskill the existing workforce, thereby, increasing their probability of acquiring jobs.

Under the Skill India programme, launched in 2015, the government had set a target to train over 400 million people in different skills by 2022. The ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship, however, have trained about 40 million people by different stakeholders since then, the report said.

The national data portal would help the government track the total number of skilled personnel in the country on a real-time basis, avoid duplication of data and save resources.

“The national skills portal, which is being developed by the National Skills Development Corp (NSDC) and the World Bank, will help to address the mismatch between the existing pool and the fast-changing skill sets required today,” an official told the paper.