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students to acquire specialised in- employment of 50 lakh (5 million)
dustrial and professional skills, it has persons,” says Sitharaman. Moreover
been almost totally neglected in post- to boost women’s participation in
independence India. Consequently, the workforce, women’s hostels and
a mere 4.4 percent of the country’s creches will be “set up in collaboration
massive 560 million workforce has with industry” and 2 million youth will
received formal VET. Despite Mahat- be skilled in 1,000 upgraded ITIs.
ma Gandhi advising that education of Yet perhaps the most ambitious
hands is as important as of minds and measure for boosting youth employ-
hearts, this advice has been ignored by ment and skilling included in the
Brahmanical bureaucrats who drew FM’s Budget 2024-25 proposals is a
up the syllabuses of our 67 school ex- scheme to provide 12-months intern-
amination boards including the pan- ship to 1 crore (10 million) youth in
India CBSE and CISCE boards. the country’s Top 500 companies over
A S A RESULT, THE coun- Sharma: localised cooperation proposal monthly allowance of Rs.5,000 plus
five years. During the internship, a
a one-time assistance of Rs.6,000 is
try’s manufacturing sec-
tor manned by informally
to bear the training cost and 10 per-
skilled and learn-on-the- Sitharaman’s Union Budget 2024-25 payable with companies “expected
job blue collar workers contributes a speech comprises several initiatives to cent of the internship cost from their
mere 17 percent of annual GDP, and boost skilling to address the problem CSR (corporate social responsibility)
Indian industrial goods and manu- of youth unemployment, more accu- funds”.
factures are totally uncompetitive in rately unemployability. This translates into every Top 500
global markets. Under the rubric of Priority #2 company being obliged to employ al-
Meanwhile with its children pro- from among the nine priorities of most 1,000 interns per year, a huge
vided solid primary and vocational Budget 2024-25 (detailed above), the number. Although subsequent state-
public education, neighbouring com- finance minister has introduced three ments from the finance ministry clari-
munist China has emerged from ob- specific schemes. Under Scheme A, fied that this scheme is “voluntary”, it
scurity to become the manufacturing youth employed in EPFO (Employees has sparked alarm within India Inc.
hub of the world. To the extent that Provident Fund Organisation), i.e, “Given the poor learning outcomes
although political relations between organised/formal sector, companies of students from India’s HEIs (higher
China and India are strained because for the first time will be paid an ad- education institutions), all freshers
of a long-festering border dispute, ditional one-month’s wage in three that a company inducts are in effect
Sino-India trade is booming with In- installments by government subject to interns. If 1,000 more are added to
dia heavily dependent on imports of a ceiling of Rs.15,000. However since this number, it will be a heavy bur-
electrical goods, components and in- this amount is payable to “all persons den. The plain truth is that 90 per-
termediates for the pharma industry newly entering the workforce in all cent of graduates of India’s HEIs
as a result of which the bilateral trade formal sectors”, i.e, have already se- except perhaps from IITs and IIMs
gap (value of imports to value of ex- cured employment, it’s not clear how are totally unprepared for productive
ports) is a staggering $101.28 billion it will generate additional employ- work and require on-the-job training
(Rs.8.5 lakh crore). ment though according to the finance for at least two years before they add
With the manufacturing sector minister, this scheme is “expected to greater value than their remuneration.
unable to absorb a substantially larg- benefit 21 lakh (2.1 million) youth”. And if to the number of freshers, we
er number of youth from rural India Under a second scheme designed are obliged to add another 1,000 per
where landholdings are shrinking to boost employment in the manufac- year, the additional cost will be signifi-
and agricultural productivity is rock- turing sector, the EPFO contribution cant. Their salaries apart, ill-educated
bottom because of poor education, the of first-time employees and employer interns require close supervision to
BJP/NDA 3.0 government has belat- companies will be paid by govern- prevent them from doing damage to
edly awoken to the importance of vo- ment for four years. And under a businesses,” opines an HRD (human
cational education and training. third scheme to stimulate corporates resource development) manager of a
Confronted with a ballooning youth to take on more employees, govern- top-ranked engineering company who
unemployment problem which lost ment will reimburse employers their prefers to remain anonymous.
the BJP a huge amount of votes in EPFO contribution up to Rs.3,000 Shalini Sharma, Assistant Di-
the recently concluded General Elec- per month for two years. This scheme rector General of the Delhi-based
tion 2024, finance minister Nirmala is “expected to incentivise additional Progress, Harmony of Development

AUGUST 2024 EDUCATIONWORLD 73