Reskilling necessary as Indian industry looks to significantly expand manufacturing capacity, says FM

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said that since most emerging jobs in the manufacturing sector would require definitive skill sets, the government had committed itself to encouraging Industry 4.0 and upskilling of manpower in a big way.

India needs to train as well as reskill people to meet the newer requirements of the industry as it goes about expanding its industrial capacity by adapting latest technologies, Sitharaman said during India Today-Business Today Budget Roundtable 2023. 

Replying to a question during a panel discussion on how lower end manufacturing jobs in India compared vis-à-vis those in Bangladesh and Vietnam, the minister said that situation here couldn’t be conflated with that existing in other countries.

“In India the industry is [significantly] expanding capacity and also looking at how they could go about it. Most of them are looking at bringing in higher levels of technology, Industry 4.0, Web.0 3 and so on. My conversations with the industry have shown me that they are looking for appropriately skilled people for those jobs; they are not jobs didn’t exist earlier,” she said.

She said that since most such jobs required definitive skill sets, the government had committed itself to encouraging Industry 4.0 and upskilling of manpower in a big way in the budget proposals for FY24.

“While the jobs are there, appropriate skill sets are not available for which we are really rushing through to certify institutions that can train appropriately people to meet the requirements of the industry,” Sitharaman said.

Private industry hasn’t halted greenfield expansion

The minister also denied that the private sector had been holding itself back from investing in greenfield projects. She said investments made in areas as diverse as renewable energy, technologies such as chip manufacturing and electronics and the many success stories emerging since the rollout of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, were all pointing to the contrary.

“We have got used to – and I include myself in that – in the old core industries. But even they have a challenge before them much before they can expand their capacities. Take steel for example. No longer can the industry expand capacity unless they are will be producing green steel,” the minister explained.

The existing steel will face prohibitive non-tariff barriers as the measure of quality was now green steel.

“So, the Indian industry will have to expand not only to produce more steel but will have to also expand to produce more and newer green steel!” she declared.