30 AUG,2022 | MEDC
The MSME sector constitutes the growth engine of both India and Maharashtra. ITIs remain the main vehicle in the country for creating skilled manpower for both industry and self-entrepreneurship. The need of the hour is to produce industry-relevant skills, through the formation of appropriate industry-academia partnerships. There is a need to shift from conventional courses like apparel, textile and handloom, and construction, to new age courses like the Internet of Things, additive manufacturing technician, and smartphone technician. The curriculum should be constantly upgraded with inputs from industry.
Many policy initiatives have already been taken by the government. The challenge is how to collaborate and coordinate with industry to train lakhs of young graduates over the coming years in sunrise sectors such as AI, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, clean technologies and digital marketing. Maharashtra does offer some distinct advantages in this regard. Approximately 10 to 15% of the workforce is formally skilled in Maharashtra compared with 5% at the national level. But we still have a long way to go to catch up with the international community – the comparable figures for South Korea, Japan and Germany are 96%, 80% and 75% respectively.
Out of 106 Unicorns in India, 25 are from Maharashtra. Maharashtra also has a network of over 50 incubators, and micro incubation centres are planned to be set up at various ITIs across the state to support grassroots level innovation. All this should go a long way in providing the necessary resources such as infrastructure, mentorship and financial support to nurture the startup culture in Maharashtra.
Female entrepreneurship constitutes an important part of the MSME ecosystem. Without adequate participation from women entrepreneurs, no MSME ecosystem will remain sufficiently vibrant and sustainable. But the world a woman entrepreneur encounters is quite different from her male counterpart, and especially so in India. The subconscious biases and stereotyping of the institutional community, which is still largely male-dominated, often prevents resources from being channelized to female entrepreneurs. This calls for a change in mindsets, which will take time and effort. The support ecosystem also needs to be geared up to assist women entrepreneurs with potentially beneficial networking and mentorship opportunities. There are certainly some success stories, but they need to be replicated more often across the board.
The pandemic has delivered an economic shock of enormous magnitude, which has hit the poor disproportionately. It is the micro enterprises which were hurt most by it. Despite the government stepping in, it was largely a case of too little too late. In today's rapidly changing world, Indian MSMEs need to focus a lot more on training and skill development. The way ahead is to identify technical and financial skill gaps at the district level, and attempt to plug them at the earliest. Policy needs to rapidly create customized ecosystems for entrepreneurship and innovation by leveraging all available schemes and resources. The development of suitable PPP frameworks is also necessary.
Much has already been done but much more is still required. In this context, entrepreneurs should also realize that there is a limit to how much the government could handhold them. Ultimately, it is their own attitudes, leadership abilities, and business management skills that will make the biggest difference to their long-term growth prospects.
*Picture Credit:Google
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Interactive Meeting with Mr. Jaykumar Rawal Hon'ble Minister for Tourism & Employment Guarantee Scheme Govt. of Maharashtra