The MSMEs employ around 110 million workforce and approximately 77 million of them predominantly work in informal setup without any formal skilled training behind them. While the need to skill this large informal workforce is obvious, MSMEs themselves do not have enough resources to upskill the existing staff or skill the new recruits on their own. The productivity and competitiveness of these units can only go up, when the workforce in this sector is formally skilled.

Over the years, the government has tried to address the skilling need through multiple schemes and initiatives, howevever their performance has remained subpar and it needs to be addressed through policy change. This includes a more focused approach towards building skill initiatives by addressing demand side rather than only focusing on supplying skilling courses, which may or may not be in demand.

A strong mechanism also needs to be built to communicate the need of MSMEs to Skill programming agencies at Centre and at the state level to make it demand driven dynamic exercise.

The Session will seek inputs from the panelists on how, going forward, Skilling for MSMEs can be driven on Innovative Skilling Solutions, so that a formal skilled workforce can make these MSMEs more competitive and efficient.

Skilling for MSME Competitiveness.