Skilling Offset: Building Skills While Building India
I ndia is building at a historic scale—smart cities, highways, metro systems, logistics hubs, Industrial hubs, airports, renewable energy parks and digital infrastructure, all expanding rapidly. These projects are growth engines, catalyzing sectors like hospitality and tourism, healthcare, manufacturing, renewable energy etc and other supporting essentials. But while we pour concrete, lay tracks, and raise skylines, we must ask: A re we building people relatively at the same scale? India, with all its resources deployed on ground, supported by the National Skill Policies of 2009, 2015 and now with 2025 on the anvil, has not yet been able to achieve its full potential. There are several challenges, which readers are well aware of, however, a few critical ones worth highlighting are, (a) need for a credible Labour Market Information System (LMIS), (b ) lack of serious Industry connect including industry participation, particularly in the host of Government (both Centr...