Skills Development to Help Boost Start Up Industry Date:   Monday , September 26, 2016 Headquartered in Chennai, STC provides a wide array of innovative workforce solutions. The corporate focused skill development entity provides industry specific skill development training and employability options for candidates across the country. India\'s swelling population has been a hot button topic for quite a while now, as the country is at the cusp of becoming the world\'s most populous country. With the population estimated to touch 1.45 billion by 2028, the numbers are touted to surpass China very soon. Although managing the massive population base of the country, poses to be a major challenge, the good news is, this makes India home to the largest employable manpower base with more than 60 percent of its current population in the age group of 15-59 years. While the demographics are indicative of the tremendous supply of the working age population, the question that bothers India\'s business houses and the Government is that -Is this manpower really skilled to be employable?. In order to steer India towards higher economic growth, it has become imperative to utilize this demographic dividend through skill development and increasing employability. In the recent years, while focusing on making India a breeding ground for startups, the Government identified Skill Development as key to the fulfillment of this aspiration. Taking swift steps towards the goal, the government created various frameworks, nodal bodies and public private partnerships focusing on skill development domain. With these initiatives, the Government of India has not only attracted domestic but also many foreign players in the skill development and training domain. As a part of such endeavors, the Government\'s National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) of India has also started partnering with many home grown vocational training companies to share the responsibility of skill development in the country. NSDC\'s association with STC Skills, a corporate focused skill-development company, is one of the most recent alliances, in alignment to the afore-mentioned government strategy. Likewise, there are many foreign players venturing into India for skills development. Heraud Training and Education India Pvt Ltd, is one such example. It is an Australia based registered training organization that undertakes consulting engagements in the skill development sector. The company initially invested approximately AU$ 100,000 in India and in the year 2014, it raised AU$ 0.5 million. Furthering the cause, in a recent session with renowned Industry leaders of the country viz. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar and SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya and economists like Subir Gokaran and Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian as well as Niti Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagriya, PM Modi urged the Indian industry to show greater appetite for risk taking and to boost their contribution to domestic investment. Furthering the session, Modi also appealed to the Industry bigwigs to take the lead in establishing \'innovation and skill hubs\' with the goal of scaling the startup landscape in the country, in their respective sectors of business. The idea is to cater to the need of creating a viable ecosystem for Startups and Self-employment to flourish. Having said that, Budget 2015, also established Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), within the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI). A whopping sum of Rs. 150 crore was also allocated to the establishment, creating an innovation promotion platform, involving academicians, and drawing upon national and international experiences to foster a culture of innovation, research and development. Similarly, the Government also built up a unique approach known as SETU (Self-Employment and Talent Utilization) to strengthen the startup prospects of India and also to support other self-employment initiatives, especially in the field of technology. Along with harnessing domestic and foreign players in the field of skill development and training, the Minister of State, for the first time has also been tasked with the responsibility of developing entrepreneurship in the country. The UPA government witnessed entrepreneurship skill development with the departments of MSME (Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises); NDA is doing under the scope of National Skill Development Agency. Modi government\'s unbending resolution to develop and promote entrepreneurial startups, in a bid to pace up with the advancing economies, was made quite evident with the introduction of Federal Ministry for Entrepreneurship and Skill development. By 2022, India has targeted to obtain skill development for about 500 million people, primarily through encouraging private players to provide viability gap funding and skill development program initiatives. With the slated goals and aid from the private and foreign players, the Ministry needs to take things by its strides and ensure that the set targets are achieved. Furthermore, it also needs to create an ecosystem ensuring ease of doing business and nurtures entrepreneurship by easing the existing layers of permissions to start a business.