Thursday 15 January 2015

Transforming India One Institution at a Time: NITI Aayog, Sandesh One and Career Centres



January 15, 2015 is the festival of Pongal a harvest festival celebrated the first day of the Tamil Lunar month of Thai which coincides with the sun’s northward movement (uttarayan). This is preceded by Boghi or Lohri which is symbolic of discarding unnecessary clutter. Pongal is symbolic of new beginnings and in a previous regime was celebrated as the Tamil New Year as well. I give this prelude because both the New Year and the Harvest Festival (also celebrated in North India as Makar Sankranti) has been full of new beginnings for the Indian national and state governments. Some of the initiatives and institutions look to kickstart double-digit growth of the Indian economy by strengthening the nation’s rural and unorganised sectors. 

Announced last year (July 14, 2014) and revived today (Jan 15, 2015) is the Career Centre programme.

“The Modi government decided to transform employment exchanges into career centres to connect youth with job opportunities in a transparent and effective manner.”

As per National Skill Development Agency data, 7,500,000 people were given skill development training in 2013-14. It is estimated that the revamping of this nationwide network will reboot the opportunities available to the unemployed and newly qualified. 


This is not the only change. Last year the Planning Commission which was set up in March 1950 through a Cabinet Resolution, was scrapped in August 2014 by the Modi Government. On the very first day of the New Year it was announced that the body replacing the commission is the NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog.


On January 13th 2015, Arvind Panagariya, former head of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and a Columbia University economics professor took over as the NITI Aayog’s vice-chairperson. Panagariya has market-friendly views and is a protégé of well-known trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati (who delivered the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture in New Delhi on January 13, 2015) and contested Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s favoured model of wealth distribution over economic growth.
The institution has the prime minister as chairperson and a Governing Council comprising of State Chief Ministers and Lieutenant Governors of Union Territories. It plans to adopt a Bharatiya approach to development. The CEO is Sindhushree Khullar, with two full-time members, four ex-officio members (Union ministers) and three special invitees for the Aayog. Economist Bibek Debroy and former DRDO chief V K Saraswat were appointed full-time members. Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Suresh Prabhu and Radha Mohan Singh are ex-officio members while Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani and Thawar Chand Gehlot are special invitees.
The Aayog will
  •   formulate policies and direction for the Government,
  •   recommend a national agenda,
  • outline strategic and technical advice on elements of policy and economic matter
  • create a roadmap to aggregate and scale up mechanisms for village-level development plans.
Another exciting innovating in the state side is Kerala’s women entrepreneur-led Sandesh One centres: “A first-of-its-kind public-private partnership (PPP) social enterprise … to develop a network of trained women entrepreneurs.”


Kerala the first Indian state to attain and maintain 100% literacy is taking the lead in women empowerment via the Kerala State Women's Development Corporation (KSWDC), an organisation under Kerala's Department of Social Justice. 

The Sandesh One launched on January 12, 2015, is KSWDC’s brainchild like Kudumbashree – a community-based poverty reduction project – and the self-explanatory She Taxi.
As per the Sandesh One project one woman will be selected from each of the over 1,000 panchayats in Kerala for undergoing six-month residential training programme at IIM Ahmedabad in entrepreneurship. The syllabus has been customised by IL and FS Skills, one of the largest skill development companies in India.  The training will aim at developing and improving entrepreneurial skills and knowledge management in addition to a product orientation programme to get familiarised with the products and services offered by the Sandesh One network.

'Sandesh One' centres are to be set up in every local body in Kerala with the pilots launched in five districts- Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Alappuzha and Kottyam.

Goals of the centre includes:
  • Large-scale employment generation opportunities at the grassroots level
  • developing solutions for pressing societal challenges
  •  micro-entrepreneurial “technology solutions to interested entrepreneurs and help them start enterprises in areas such as high-tech agriculture, preventive healthcare, water management, waste management, renewable energy, deforestation and others interventions that can positively influence the society and improve the quality of lives.”
  • KSWDC which will facilitate loans, provide PR support and tie-ups with other stakeholders.
  • IIM Ahmedabad, IL&FS, several institutions, including top B-schools, trade associations and about 20 solution providers coordinated by 'Alterneit' are partnering with groundbreaking initiative.
Thus the New Year and the month for new beginnings bring forth many programmes with the aim of “Transforming India.” Here’s wishing them all great success in their noble endeavours!

REFERENCES
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/employment-exchanges-to-become-career-centres-govt/#sthash.zqLVV2nl.dpuf
http://www.newkerala.com/news/2015/fullnews-2734.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/01/04/kerala-social-entrepreneu_n_6412120.html
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/planning-commission-to-be-renamed-niti-ayog/article6744546.ece
http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/arvind-panagariya-assumes-charge-of-niti-aayog-vice-chairman-115011300874_1.html 

*
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/learning-from-one-another/article6785725.ece
Two pages on there was a report of his rival Jagdish Bhagawati's talk in Delhi:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-at-cusp-of-change-again-bhagwati/article6785821.ece

Sunday 4 January 2015

“Make in India,” Skill Development, CSR: Win-Win for All Players



With the 13th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (“the annual gathering of the Indian diaspora,” January 7-9, 2015 @ Gandhinagar, Gujarat) nearly upon us all the governments favourite catchphrases and pet projects will be getting aggressive publicity. In the spirit of give-and-take while the government plans to announce “non-resident Indians (NRIs) getting voting rights” to commemorate the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s return from South Africa it will also expect returns from the NRIs in the form of investment, sponsorship, lobbying for its various ambitious projects to stimulate a double figure GDP growth rate. Of them all “Make in India,” Kaushal Vikas (Skill Development), village adoption, smart cities, digitalizing India, Ganga cleanup will most probably get a lot of coverage.


One of the big-wins in terms of forward planning in my opinion of the previous government was the Companies Bill of 2012 under the aegis of then Minister for Corporate Affairs Sachin Pilot (Ratified by Rajya Sabha in August 2013, passed in 2012 by the Lok Sabha) that replaced the Companies Act, 1956. The highpoint of which for me was the fact that “The Bill, as ratified by Parliament, prescribes an expenditure of 2 per cent of profits on CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities in their respective areas of operation. These would have to be outcome and timeline-driven with details posted on websites.”



When one keeps in mind the problems of joblessness, inflation, global economic slowdown and the massive population of the nation that hamper progress, the need becomes clear for India to be an international manufacturing hub, investment destination, and a “Skills capital” yet the skill deficit is huge in India and remains a stumbling block to it fully enjoying the demographic dividend.

Multiple agreements have been signed with the economic powers (UN, US, Japan, China, EAS, G-20, Australia, UK, France, Russia, etc.) and more will be signed when Barack Obama arrives in India for the 66th Republic Day. Many promises were made to NRIs, investors, and companies to address the infrastructure and red-tape bottlenecks but a bigger crisis is addressing the lack of skilled workers. 



According to a paper from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat (land of one of India’s biggest success stories – AMUL), “There are currently many skills development initiatives underway, but supporting on the job training in the massive unorganized sector should be a priority as this is where most jobs for the youth are created.”
Using companies’ need for CSR programmes with visible impact as a solution to India’s skill deficit  can be a win-win for all players and take the nation into double digit GDP growth. According to the European Commission's definition CSR refers to companies taking responsibility for their impact on society. Many Indian and India-based corporate already have some very successful schemes and foundations in place to aid their consumer and future employee bases. TVS, Reliance, Tata, L&T, Citi group all have programmes in place that is skilling and empowering many. The National Skill Development Corporation India (NSDC),a Public Private Partnership is in place with the goal to promote skill development by catalyzing creation of large, quality, for-profit vocational institutions. Also in place is the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship under minister of state (independent charge) Sarbananda Sonowal that seeks to harmonise the activities of “skill development efforts are spread across approximately 20 separate ministries, 35 State Governments and Union Territories and the private sector.” Events are also select “Team India” for the WorldSkills Championship to be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in August 2015. It remains to be seen whether the successful combination of skill-building and CSR pioneered by a few giants and the pilot programmes of smaller entities can be replicated to help transform the Indian workforce!

REFERENCES:
Young and Jobless, BBC series, November-December 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3csr587
http://csrworld.net/Employability-Education-for-Indias-Youth-Program-CSR-initiative-of-citi-india.asp
http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/companies-bill-passed/article5003777.ece
http://www.financialexpress.com/article/economy/pravasi-bharatiya-divas-to-highlight-make-in-india-and-other-initiatives/22134/
https://www.worldskills.org/what/
http://www.nsdcindia.org/organisation-profile