By ABHAY MAJHI
DEHRADUN, 18 Nov: It’s been twenty years since the creation of the state of Uttarakhand and it has come a long way. Many of the issues have been addressed and resolved in time. One of the main concerns is the problem of skill development and human resource in the state. Though the region’s flourishing with high economy and good trade, the government is lacking in human resource development. Yesterday, at VoW, the need for an effective workforce was raised by Dwarka Prasad Uniyal, Sushil Ramola and BK Joshi during the session on “HR, EDP & Skills”. They discussed the demand for skills for the future. Rather than focusing on rote-learning, the educational institutions needed to look for the skills that would help students to work on innovative endeavours. It was emphasised that the students should be trained in technical and vocational courses so that they could generously work for society. Moreover, they had to become job creators, not job seekers. With record high statistics on unemployment, the centre needed to be more concerned about looking for investment in creating more jobs. In the ever changing landscape of the world, there is a huge requirement for expertise in good industrial and organisational design, they added. During the session, a book, the “State of Himalayan Farmers and Farming” was launched, funded by FAO. The report concentrates on the condition of the cultivators and the amount of food being produced in the region. While the consumers are in the urban areas, their numbers never indicate the contribution of the farmers. So, the report explains how the self-employed work with what they have. It is seen that majority of the women work as self-employed workers, doing odd jobs in farming, services and craft. Thus the women needed to be given proper vocational education on the mechanism of the business and taught technical know-how. In the 20th year of its existence, Uttarakhand needs to give the people more confidence, improve productivity and give direction for proper skill development. Every job aspirant needed to be given soft skills to help lead a proper and decent life. The speakers emphasised that the main goal was to create opportunities, space and scope for the development of talents, particularly those of the youth, and to develop more of those sectors which have already been put under skill development for the last so many years and also to identify new sectors for skill development. The emphasis is to skill the youths in such a way so that they get employment and also improve entrepreneurship, providing training, support and guidance for all occupations that are of the traditional type like carpenters, cobblers, welders, blacksmiths, masons, nurses, tailors, weavers, etc.
