Mumbai, Dec 8 (KNN) The Maharashtra government is inviting private sector companies to either partner with the government or set up their own facilities to develop a skilled workforce.

The primary aim of the government is to engage with the private sector for skill development so as to help improve productivity and efficiency across sectors, state minister for skill development & entrepreneurship Mangal Prabhat Lodha said.

"In India, we have around 4-5 per cent skilled workforce while in developed countries this number goes up to 40 per cent. We have to put in a lot of effort to reach that level," Lodha said, speaking at the ET Now Leaders of Tomorrow Awards event on Wednesday.

"Prime Minister Modi believes that India has so much entrepreneurship but unless the skill development and upgradation take place, we, as a country, will not be able to get the best result through these efforts," he said.

The Maharashtra government has a lot of skill development centres and industrial training institutes (ITIs) that provide industry-related education and, according to Lodha, private sector entities can tie up with these or start their own incubation centres to provide skill training and support to businesses in their respective sectors.

In November, the minister had announced a government plan to set up 1,000 skill centres across rural Maharashtra in six months.

Addressing the event, Times Network managing director and CEO MK Anand said: "For over a decade, Leaders of Tomorrow, India's largest entrepreneurship platform, has enabled and empowered the spirit of Indian SMEs, MSMEs and startups. While we all are taking pride in the vast human resource that is available to India, we also plan to create the right leadership that can ease us into a promising tomorrow."

Speaking at the event, IDFC First Bank MD and CEO V Vaidyanathan discussed the challenges that small and medium entrepreneurs face in doing business, especially when it comes to the lending sector.

“The finance sector is huge in our country, especially the lending market which is worth Rs 140 lakh crore. Of this, medium and small enterprises account for only Rs 8.7 lakh crore. They operate out of equity, which is an inefficient way of doing business. To help these small enterprises, we must come up with an improved tax structure with rebates, just like our tax slabs,” he said.

This will help them save more, attract talent and fight the disadvantage of being in smaller cities.  (KNN Bureau)