TeamLease Services co-founder says need Budget for incentives to launch skill varsities

Rituparna Chakraborty, Co-founder & Executive Director, TeamLease Services

"The centre is likely to target a nominal GDP growth of about 11-12% in the FY22-23 budget. To consolidate and augment the ecosystem to fast track GDP growth, cohesive steps are required to improve employment and employability of the talent in the country. To tackle India’s skill crisis, the need for the hour is to lead a Skilling Revolution 5.0 which will help enterprises partake up-skilling more objectively.

To make upskilling through CSR function more beneficial, the budget needs to make provisions to exempt these spends from GST to encourage more enterprises to undertake up-skilling. Another aspect that the budget needs to address is scaling apprenticeship adoption in the country. Apprenticeships have emerged as a credible solution to create a robust skilled talent pipeline for the future. India has the potential to reach 10 million apprentices in 10 years but the key to achieving this vision requires budgetary provisions in the form of incentives and reforms to launch skill universities; extended tax SOPS/higher subsidies to MSMEs and SMEs to adopt apprenticeship; create a single portal for both NATS and NAPS, separate regulations in the current UGC Act and Apprentices Act to scale work integrated programs; and the consolidation, simplification, and digitization of degree apprenticeships programs.”