Women Skill Development and Make in India : Opportunities and Challenges

In India majority of women and men residing both in rural and urban areas are unskilled. However, more number of women residing in the rural areas is unskilled compared to men living in both rural and urban areas. And these unskilled women workers are working in the informal sector facing many problems including lack of skills. The studies reveal that more than 90 per cent of women workers are concentrated in the informal sector. However, the condition of women in the informal sector is miserable, most of time they have to work in extremely low wages and without any job security and social security benefits, apart from these working conditions also unsatisfactory. And for all these problem lack of skill among women is one of the main reasons. Hence, to empower women working in the informal sector and fulfill the dream of Make in India concept of our Hon. Prime Minister there is an urgent need to transform them as ‘skilled worker' through suitable programmes and policies.Against this background the paper is designed with the following objectives. 1. To discuss the importance of skill development for women in the informal sector in the wake of Make in India; 2.To discuss the hurdles of women in attaining skill; 3.To suggest suitable policy measures to improve employability of the women workers in the informal sector. The proposed study mainly is descriptive in nature. It solemnly based on secondary sources of data and information which is collected from the related sources as per need of the research. The study suggests that there is a need to further develop HRD and training policy from a gender perspective, with an understanding of local customs and traditions. Besides this, there is a need to make the skill development process accommodating and flexible to encourage women to enroll. The training may have to incorporate teaching of basic skills such as numeracy, problem solving, communication, learning to learn, and team work and, other deeply impacting skill such as behavioral skills, including building selfesteem, self-organizational and negotiating capacity for employment purpose