Mumbai: A quick back of the envelope calculation brings to us these interesting statistics. A 0.1 per cent increase in Education Budget set aside for this reimbursement to the industry would mean the industry can train 3.2 million potential 'near hires' at Rs10,000 per individual.

''Can we see the end to this talent shortage in India inc? Is someone listening ?'', he asks

Citing industry surveys, Karthik KS, CEO of 24x7 Learning, an Indian e-learning implementation company, says India is likely to face a talent shortage of the magnitude of 3.1 million by 2010, along with a 1 million leadership-talent shortage by the year 2015. He adds, ''Now is the time for the government to address India's growing skills shortage by allocating money for education and training, setting up skill development missions and partnering with Corporate India to train re-skill and up skill the great Indian workforce.   India is in urgent need of adopting proactive and progressive policies on education and training.''

Outlining his expectations from Budget 2008, he acknowledges the government's positive steps, with the increase in education allocation in the 2007-08 Budget. Initiatives such as the Skill Development Mission to extend training facilities to 10 million people a month, up from 2.5 million a year at present are an excellent move towards enriching India's talent pool.
 
However, the need of the hour is to further increase the spend on education and simultaneously join hands with private enterprises to train the emerging workforce in order to meet the challenge that lies ahead.

Incentivising corporates for training fresh graduates, or even bearing part of the training costs incurred by organisations would be an enormous reason for the private sector to get further involved in the education and training scenario in India.

''With the government's help, corporates can even get involved in graduate level education, thus improving a young India's employability prospects. A public-private partnership of this nature can take India to new heights with a rich talent pool geared to meet all challenges of a rapidly developing economy,''says Karthik.
 
One recommendation he would like to make to the government, is to set aside funds from the education budget to enhance the employability of the educated youth.  This amount can be used to reimburse the industry for having trained fresh manpower before recruitment.

According to Karthik, this would encourage industry to be creative in their search for talent and they would now reach out to the millions of so called 'unemployable' or 'near hires' youth. He says there is no better way than getting the industry to train and recruit, as then, in their own interest, they would do a good job of training these candidates.