The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has pledged to skill 3.3 million youth in the current fiscal, a target nearly three- and-half times what was set and achieved in 2013-14. The not-for-profit company, which has 31 sector skill councils and 136 training partners, with over 2,500 training centres across 366 districts, aims to skill 150 million Indians by 2022. Dilip Chenoy, who took charge as Managing Director & CEO of NSDC since its inception in 2010, has lead the organisation to achieve its targets year-on-year and is confident of achieving the proposed numbers this year too. Chenoy, who was present at one of the events recently organised by All India Management Association, spoke to Business Line about NSDC’s target and challenges. Excerpts:

How do you plan to achieve your target of training 150 million people by 2022?

We have a commitment from 130 partners to train 80 million people by 2022. So, we have to find more partners to do the balance, which is close to another 120 million. Education and skill development are not simple arithmetic. For example, if you want to start a school, you will start with class 1 and next year you will have class 1 and class 2. Hence, it will take 12 years to scale and, at the same time, if you have a good reputation, you will scale much faster. It is not a binary calculation, it is exponential. We have factored that in, and have put an exponential growth rate for us. If the economy moves back to an 8-9 per cent growth rate, there will be huge incentive for people to be skilled because there will be many jobs. We are fairly confident that we will meet our targets.

How can the skilled workforce change the economy?

Having skilled people can change the rate of growth in an economy in two conditions: one, they go back to their existing companies and become more productive and increase the output. That will automatically cause the GDP to grow.

Second, when the GDP grows, and because of the new investment and jobs that are coming up, the requirement for skilled people grows. Skilling is also very interesting because you can also train people to be entrepreneurs. And entrepreneurs create more jobs. If you create an ecosystem, which looks at entrepreneurs for creating new job roles and systems, then it will help in GDP growth.

Various skills are required, and in different companies, at almost all the stages. How do you plan to tackle varied demand?

You have to create an ecosystem if you look at the country as a whole. You have to address the skills needed in schools between 8th and 12th standards, in colleges that want to integrate skills with education, and in postgraduate courses. Eventually, someone may do his/her Phd in one of these skills such as welding, or customer care. So, you have to create that aspirational value. The only way we can scale this is if we make it aspirational to people and they find a value in it. They can either set up their own business or join a job, or at least compete for it on equal footing. So, it’s not an entitlement situation, it is an empowerment situation.

Which are the high-growth areas that will require skilled talent in abundance in the coming years?

All the 22 sectors identified for NSDC are high-growth areas. And we did the maximum amount of training in healthcare, IT/ITES, BFSI, and retail sectors for two reasons. One, it is easier to start training people in these areas; second, the investment required is low; and third, in these sectors, the attrition level is so high that people even want to fill existing jobs. As this model grows, beauty and wellness, and textile and apparel sectors will emerge very quickly.

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