Today the entire machine based industry in India,is suffering from skill shortage, acute, clear and present.
In the early years of industrialization of India, the industries were setup in the public and private sectors, mostly in collaboration with technologically advanced countries. The technology providers also provided the necessary skill trainings to the work force. The trained workforce continued in these industries continued as long as their generation lasted.
Parallely, there were industries being set up in the small & medium sectors, who hired cheap labours, and trained them in-house. Some trained workmen were also available from the ITIs & Polytechnics, which used to teach hand skills for various trades. In those years, the manufacturing processes involved lot of manual skill and the generation of workmen had grown their skills over years of hard work and dedication.
However, the industry as a whole, and the society, in a larger perspective, failed to honour and appreciate this quality which these people had silently imbibed in their work. While the society was busy honouring actors, authors, painters, film makers, journalists, and social activists and others, the entire generation of skilled workmen, remained unrecognized, un-honored and rather ignored and considered low level people in the social strata. Parallely, the industrial world honoured the white collar cadre and the skilled workmen remained lowly paid, exploited, working in unhealthy, unsafe work place, with negligible pay. As a natural outcome, the workmen got attracted to the fire roused by scheming trade unions and a great divide developed between the management and the workmen.
The ageing workmen understood that with years of labour and dedication, they have neither earned well, nor they gained any social respect. Hence after their retirement, very few encouraged their next generation to take up their father’s profession.
Parallely, big industries started automating the production lines, bringing in costly machines with very little labour involvement and almost total elimination of involvement of skill. The medium and small industries who still continued with manual processes started feeling the pinch when the flow of young skilled workmen started drying out, from sometime in the mid-nineties. The colleges and training institutes became play ground of political parties, capturing young minds for student union activities, while teachers, already derogated in merit through dubious means of recruitment, were not capable enough of teaching and imbibing the skills in the students. The basic purpose of creation of trained workmen for industries took a back seat, giving a certificate after completing the cousre hours became a common practice. And at the same time, in order to avoid strengthening the labour unions, industries developed the tendency of outsourcing labour, which has further diluted the situation.
Let us acknowledge the importance of skill in industries, and start giving the skilled worker their dues, not only in terms of decent remuneration but also social recognition. Otherwise, we are facing an era of industries with machines without skilled people to run them. Training alone does not build skill. It needs dedication and hardwork from the workman to build his skill, and this needs motivation for the person to do so.
