Skilling towards Entrepreneurship

India has numerous reasons to focus on skill development of its populace. In addition to the obvious economic benefits of having a skilled population, skilling helps address multifarious challenges. A citizenry, especially the youth, involved in productive employment ensures a progressive society and nation. Holistic and targeted skilling, including knowledge of forward and backward linkages, would produce entrepreneurs, who are job creators. Finally, a skilled population would help maximize the demographic dividend and even provide the much-needed manpower to a global economy facing an ageing workforce. A Boston Consultancy Group study, in 2007, indicated that by 2020, while India will have surplus of 56 million working people, the rest of the world will encounter a shortage of 47 million working people.