Kerala is proposing a grand plan to not only skill its young people but also provide related know-how to other parts of the country.

This is being taken up as part of the Prime Minister’s initiative for skilling 50 crore young people by 2022 for building up a pool of skilled manpower in India.

Skilling target

A concept note prepared by the State Labour Department projects that, on a proportionate basis, Kerala would need to skill 1.35 crore youngsters by 2022.

This means that over the next nine years, the State would need to target on an average 15 lakh young people for skilling every year. This represents an eight-fold increase in the number that the State is averaging concurrently, the note said.

This is a challenge but it can help not just itself but also other skills-deficient States such as those in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

While doing so, it would also be able to supply skilled manpower within the country and to the world outside, especially West Asia and emerging countries in Africa.

State Skills Plan

There is a need to develop a State Skills Plan and implement it during the period from January 2014 and December 2022 focusing on skills required within Kerala and across India, even globally. This would include the scope of promoting the State as a skills training destination, the note said.

The labour department is proposing an international conference on ‘Emerging Skills, Kerala’ at Kochi in December as a follow-through on the ‘Emerging Kerala’ event held there last year.

The conference will seek to identify the challenges in developing and implementing the State Skills Plan as well as evolve solutions

vinson.kurian@thehindu.co.in

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