In what could be a major electoral gambit, the Telugu Desam Party is promising to provide a job each to every household. The party believes it is achievable.
The TDP is betting big on honing the skills of employed/unemployed youth in different trades by opening appropriate skill development centres manned by experts so that they become “employable.” The party’s think tank comprising retired IAS officers and financial experts is busy chalking out concrete action plans in this direction.
“These skill development centres will focus on training professional and management graduates in SMAC (social, mobility, analytics and cloud services) technologies. But the party is concentrating on providing appropriate training to artisans, goldsmiths and others,” retired IAS official K. Lakshminarayana told The Hindu .
The effort comes in the light of a World Bank study pegging the employability of youth at 16 per cent while a Nasscom study brought it further down to 14 per cent. “Colleges in the State are admitting close to 10 lakh students a year, of which the dropout rate is 30 per cent. Employability has become a key challenge for the seven lakh and odd students passing out of the colleges,” he said.
Mr. Lakshminarayana, former Secretary of Technical Education, said the promise of jobs was based on the past experiences when over 5,000 students of polytechnics were absorbed into IT giant Infosys after basic training in communication skills and analytics that instilled confidence in them. “They have the drive. It is for the government to nurture their skills and make them employable,” he said.
Mr. Lakshminarayana, along with finance expert Kutumba Rao and other members, conducted elaborate studies related to the best practices elsewhere and designed models based on the data collected/analysed. The two are confident that the ongoing talk of slowdown in the economy hitting the market, including the employment sector, is much hyped. “Why are the car sales on the rise if there is a real slowdown?” Mr. Kutumba Rao asks.
The same is the case with purchasing power of people. “Inflation is a direct denominator of mismatch in the demand and supply and the inherent purchase power continues to be on the rise. If the purchasing power is lost, why is the inflation on the higher side?” he questioned.
He admitted that the negligence of manufacturing sector has a bearing on the employment generation, but not to the magnitude that is being propagated. The negligence has led to a crisis, but not on the employment side.
