Skilling farmers is vital for the economy
This was the message delivered by G. Raghuram, Director of Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru, at a convocation address at the Mahatma Gandhi University in Nalgonda. Low wages and productivity were rendering an estimated 40 lakh people out of the farming sector annually and pushing them towards unskilled work in construction and the services sector, he added. Raghuram feels that informal workers are already in large surplus numbers with demand for skilled human capital to be around 2.5 crores annually for the next five. Hence skilling farmers to enable a shift to non-farm rural sectors such as construction, warehousing, trad, and entrepreneurship will enable higher employability and wages. Raghuram also pointed to a need for more initiatives such as the Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge, to move Telangana up the employment table, which is currently at 3.4% of jobs available or 9th in ranking according to a 2017-study by Aspiring Minds, a leading employment assessment company.
