"The framework of Political Development in the Indian Constitution".

  - Amit Arya, Faculty, BBA Dept., Dhanwate National College, Nagpur 

Email Id: mailtoamitarya@gmail.com

Abstract: This research-paper solely based on secondary sources of information hopes to intervene in the ongoing debate around such questions which defines the framework of Political & Social Development in the Indian Constitution and further explore our constitutional challenges in a boisterous democracy. Also this paper hopes to encourage conversation about our current constitutional challenges, and address each of the hereinafter mentioned themes, from the history and politics of judicial appointments to the search for rationality between the different benches of the Supreme Court to our tragic obsession with tribunals. The paper will also reflect upon institutional, structural concerns outside the judiciary, in particular, the Parliament.

Keywords: Indian Constitution, Political Development, Parliament, Supreme Courts, Tribunals, Judiciary.

The Indian Constitution – An Introduction to “the problem”

“ A set of rules approved by (majority) representatives of the States to follow a list of “Do’s” and “Don’ts” with the aim to bring Prosperity, Equality and Just to the people of the nation.”

Since its creation over six decades ago, the life of India’s Constitution has involved much political tilt and various forms of improvisation. Formally amended over a hundred times and informally reinterpreted in countless judicial decisions, the document symbolize the idea of common nationality and a shared political commitment while its practices reveal shifting socio-political norms, principles, and aspiration. Constitutional challenges in India as elsewhere are hardly inert, even if countries must ever so often wrestle with tensions that acquire a lasting character. How do countries negotiate new, changing socio-political landscape within the terms of already set rules? What kinds of challenges have emerged in India in the recent history and what sorts of new questions do they require us to explore?

One of the most evident and acknowledged trends in Indian constitutional development over the past few years has been ascend of the Indian judiciary. Since the 1970s, the judiciary, and the Supreme Court in particular, has come to attain a status in Indian political life that it lacked in the early years of the Republic. The reasons for this are classically regarded to be the demur of other public institutions, most notably Parliament, and the emergence of a governance void.

The story of the Supreme Court’s rise is an intricate one, and an important element in the story is thought to be the expansion and intensification of public interest litigation, a procedural development that transformed both the character of litigation facing the court and the kinds of disputes that became subject to judicial pledge. While a vigilant analysis of the court’s principle over the past three decades might lead to surprising results and suggest that the court is in fact far less activist, as it were, than is commonly imagined, and that in remedial terms it is thought to deliver more than it does, few would rebuff that hardly any areas of Indian political life are now immune from the court’s gaze. Regardless of the definitive decision delivered and the vast degrees of reverence that exist – important though this is – there is little that has remained outside the purview of the court’s jurisdiction.

Amongst the most controversial matters on which the court has come to have a position has been the appointment of judges. Through a sequence of decisions in the 1990s, the court interpreted the rule determining how judges shall be appointed and believed that no appointment could be made unless it was recommended by the collegiums (the five senior-most judges of the court). To be in command over the appointments procedure was ostensibly driven by a need for judicial independence: if the legislature or administrative could control who serves on the judiciary, how would the judiciary emerge as being staffed by judges who were truly independent? This apprehension is legitimate and the problem of judicial independence is a real one. But the collegiums system of appointments has invited near widespread criticism. Some of the criticism is lawful and technical – it is suggested that the Constitution envisages a very different appointments process – but, for the most apart, the criticism has been that the attempt towards independence has come at the solemn cost of accountability. The in progress system suffers from, the argument goes, a major lack of transparency.

The appointment system is the most politically charged structural question in front of the judiciary today but it is barely the only one. A different alarm facing the operation of the Supreme Court is the structure of benches. In contrast to the United States Supreme Court which sits en banc, the Indian Supreme Court operates in different courtrooms. The Chief Justice’s role in determining bench composition and allocation is central, and recent research has indicated the extraordinary power he wields. In recent years, the figure of constitutional benches (benches who strength is five judges or more) has decreased and several new, imperative doctrinal questions appear before smaller benches. Moreover, there appears to be no clear, standard model that determines bench size, and it is not apparent that the size of a bench and the legal magnitude of an issue correspond with the same severity that they once did. Although this change is subtle, it threatens the doctrine of precedent and has the prospective to give rise to decisions that are per incuriam, eventually threatening the rule of law.

A rather different structural question is being faced by another organ: tribunals. Tribunals, with their quasi-judicial nature, began with two kinds of promises. First, their curtailed procedural set up promised a faster model of justice delivery. Second, they were initiated in areas where expert knowledge was thought to matter. Staffed with experts, tribunals hoped to meet the challenges posed by the technical complexity of the disputes they adjudicated. But although there has been merely no research on tribunals and whether they have been victorious in achieving these aims, they have matured at an exponential rate. They are now not merely outstanding organs for certain rare, unique kinds of cases; rather, they are fast becoming forums in which fundamental legal questions are subject to resolution.

The inconsiderate development of tribunals has given rise to two major concerns, which have received far too little consideration in discussions on judicial restructuring. First, despite the fact that tribunals have confirmed no evidence of performing capably, the focus has been on creating new tribunals rather than strengthening the existing judicial system. As is the case with civic institutions in India generally, the remedy for deteriorating institutions has been the conception of new ones rather than remedying flaws with existing institutions. The random growth of tribunals has sidetracked attention from any solemn reform of the high courts.

A second key concern regarding tribunals relates to judicial independence. Tribunals are staffed to a substantial level by bureaucrats, although the Supreme Court has held that judicial independence and the parting of powers doctrine demands that judges constitute at slightest fifty per cent of the tribunal. Tribunals have become a retirement abode for bureaucrats. Apart from the hasty expansion of tribunals, therefore, indicating some form of rent seeking, bureaucratic staffing of tribunals raises a vital separation of powers concern: executive infringement upon the judiciary.

The last years has been one in which numerous of the above institutional concerns have acquired salience and require rethinking. But it was also a year of a number of very prominent judicial decisions, whose legal and political impact might be felt for years. Perhaps the most prominent of these was the 2-G decision, in which the Supreme Court cancelled spectrum licenses that had been awarded through an purportedly arbitrary process. The court’s decision approved enormous legitimacy to the anti-corruption movement, and represented an example in which it took a strong stand against the executive backed by major corrective implications. But was the decision ground in sound administrative law doctrine or was it more oratory than reason?

An additional milestone decision was the protection of the constitutionality of the Right to Education Act, a law which imposes conditions on private educational institutions and demands that they admit a certain quota of underprivileged children. The decision was extensively praised, and the impugned law has been regarded as a path-breaking social justice measure (although its precise drafting and policy requirements are thought to leave much to be desired). But, despite its alleged payback, to what extent is the court’s decision sensitive to the temperament of horizontal privileges under the Constitution and does it adequately acknowledge the right to freedom of profession?

These are only some questions that at present dominate Indian constitutional law debate and recommend avenues of inquest that might be pursued. Others of great connotation at the instant include the question of land acquirement and the right to property or the correlation between constitutionalism and the economy.

Tribunals: a tragic obsession

Over the last 25 years, Parliament has systematically taken away significant judicial functions of the High Courts and the civil courts and vested them in quasi-judicial tribunals. The stature of our High Courts has been reduced and, if this trend continues, vitally important cases will come to be decided by tribunals that are wholly controlled by the executive. The tribunalization of our judicial system will lead to consequences that our country will bitterly regret. Despite the fact that the functioning of most tribunals is in a pathetic state, the zeal to create more tribunals has not abated. Very few have realized that the real solution lies in strengthening the existing courts and confining tribunals to a few specialized areas. It is equally important to ensure that specialized tribunals are not manned by generalist civil servants or judges.

The first blow came with the 42nd amendment to the Constitution, made during the Emergency promulgated in June 1975. Furious at the independence of the judiciary, Indira Gandhi was determined to drastically cut the power of this branch of government. On the ground that there were mounting arrears in the High Courts and there was a need to ensure speedy disposal of service and tax cases, Articles 323A and 323B were inserted. At the same time, major amendments were made to drastically curtail the powers of the High Courts under Articles 226 and 227.

Tribunals began with the setting up of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) in 1941, which acquired a reputation for impartiality and fairness. Many famous lawyers developed their argumentative skills in cases before the ITAT. It is said that Nani Palkhivala, perhaps, argued more cases before this tribunal than any other forum. After independence, the ITAT pattern of a two-member tribunal was followed by the creation of sales tax tribunals in several states. These tax tribunals were outside the mainstream judiciary; within the judiciary function the rent control, motor vehicle and industrial tribunals. Till date, election petitions are also heard by a High Court judge who functions as the Election Tribunal. 

The Company Law Board (CLB), created in 1988, began functioning in May 1991. It was also patterned on the ITAT and marked a major departure in the creation of tribunals. Till then, all tribunals outside the judiciary dealt with disputes between the citizen and government departments. For the first time private disputes between two shareholders or between the shareholders and the company were shifted to a quasi-judicial body. The functions discharged by the High Court for almost 80 years were now shifted to four benches of the Company Law Board. Strangely, for the last two decades, the government has been unable to recruit even nine members for this tribunal and, over the years, cases which were heard by two members are now being heard by a single member.

Following the establishment of the CLB, the Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRT) was set up. The rationale was that there were too many cases pending before the civil courts and banks had to wait for several years to recover their money. Flush with this success, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT)/ National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) were created in 2002; the National Tax Tribunal (NTT) and the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) in 2003. In a span of two years, the jurisdiction of the High Courts in company law, taxation and intellectual property were simply taken away. Fortunately, the creation of NCLT/NCLAT and NTT has been halted because of certain judgments which are discussed later.

 The rewards to civil servants are so enormous that the government has insisted on creating more and more tribunals, even though most of them have failed to achieve the objective of speedy and specialized disposal of cases. There was no justification for creating more than twenty benches of the NCLT in various states with 62 members when the admitted arrears in company cases was just 6000. Indeed, the creation of a Company Law Board was never a part of the initial reference to Justice Eradi who headed the committee. Most of the responses were against the creation of the NCLT. The Reserve Bank of India was also against taking away the jurisdiction of the High Courts.

Conclusion:

- Madhav Khosla in his book “The Indian Constitution” rightly criticizes the power given to a Speaker of a legislative assembly to decide on the disqualification of a member for defection under the 10th Schedule to the Constitution. He rightly points out that such a power should not be given to a Speaker considering his political background and erratic ways of the Speakers of legislative assemblies, and that such a power should have been conferred on an independent body like the Election Commission.

- The author appears to be benign in his interpretation of the judgement in the controversial Supreme Courts Advocates on Records case (1992), which by dubious interpretation of Article 124(2) of the Constitution appropriated the power of appointment of judges to collegiums of judges of the Supreme Court. He believes that the criticism and that the power to appoint judges of the Supreme Court has been taken over by the judiciary is an exaggeration and that the decision only ingeniously made both the executive and judiciary powerful as regards appointments. Evidently, the author has not sufficiently realized the practical working of the collegiums system of judges which today is regarded as lacking in any transparency and, worse, contributing to the inferior quality of judges appointed by the system.

- The perceived reason for creating tribunals is often attributed to the huge backlog of cases and the need for specialization. However, the real reason is that tribunals are an excellent source of post-retirement opportunities for several bureaucrats and High Court judges. For instance, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) required 62 members throughout India, the majority of whom will most certainly be retired civil servants. The term of office is deliberately restricted to five years so that no self-respecting and competent lawyer will apply. Similarly, the National Taxation Tribunal (NTT) contemplates strength of 50 members. Thus, creating more tribunals generates more post-retirement opportunities for the bureaucracy.

-  The rewards to civil servants are so enormous that the government has insisted on creating more and more tribunals, even though most of them have failed to achieve the objective of speedy and specialized disposal of cases. There is no doubt that tribunals are an essential part of the justice delivery system and have an important role to play. It is necessary to ensure that tribunals are confined to disputes between citizens and government departments and are not formed to decide disputes which are essentially civil or criminal in nature. If such tribunals are to be formed, they should be part of the judiciary itself like the rent control and motor-vehicle tribunals. Similarly, substantial questions of law cannot be decided by tribunals as this is the exclusive realm of the judiciary. It is equally necessary that all tribunals must come under the Ministry of Law and have uniform conditions of service. This was recommended in Chandra Kumar’s case in 1977.

- Finally, one must realize that tribunals are primarily meant to resolve disputes; in India, their primary function is to provide employment to retired bureaucrats. Adjudicating disputes is ancillary or incidental to this object. Taking away disputes from courts and vesting them in tribunals has proved to be disastrous to the Indian legal system. The fatal attraction with tribunals has weakened the judiciary without any improvement in the disposal of case or in the quality of justice.

Needless to say, in turning my interest to the debates of the Constituent Assembly, it is not my intention to either pledge to or advocate an original interpretation of the Indian Constitution. Techniques of constitutional version provide a well-heeled subject for debate, one that must necessarily take place elsewhere. My limited intent is to twirl to history for the lessons it teaches us, so that any bid for reform is duly informed by both the positives as well as the pitfalls of past experiences.

References:

THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION by Madhav Khosla. Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2012

-  Union of India v. Delhi High Court Bar Association (2002) 4 SCC 275.
- Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002.
- V.Balachandran v Union of India (1993) 76 Comp Cas 67 (Mad).
- S.P. Sampath Kumar v Union of India (1987) 1 SCC 124.
- L. Chandra Kumar v Union of India (1997) 3 SCC 261.
- Harry Brandy v Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1995) 183 CLR 245.
- L. Chandra Kumar v Union of India (1997) 3 SCC 261.

Arvind P. Datar – Tribunals;http://india-seminar.com/2013/642/642_arvind_p_datar.htm

History’s Lessons from Constitutional Reforms – Arghya Sengupta

u4upskill.blogspot.in - Amit Arya.

Indian Constitution

Meaning:

“ A set of rules approved by (majority) representatives of the States to follow a list of “Do’s” and “Don’ts” with the aim to bring Prosperity, Equality and Just to the people of the nation.”

A paper on development of entrepreneurship in India by implementing  various Skills development programs by state and central government of India and it's challenges.

By:

Dr Preeti R Gotmare

Post Doctoral Fellow,

PGTD, Department of Commerce,

RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur.

Email Id : preeti.r.gotmare@gmail.com

Mr. Amit Arya

Faculty, Department of Business Management(BBA),

Dhanwate National College,

Nagpur

Email Id: mailtoamitarya@gmail.com

Skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development for any country. Countries with higher and better levels of skills adjust more effectively to the challenges and opportunities of world of work. Potentially, the target group for skill development comprises all those in the labour force, including those entering the labour market for the first time (12.8 million annually), those employed in the organized sector (26.0 million) and those working in the unorganized sector (433 million) in 2004-05. The current capacity of the skill development programs is 3.1 million. India has set a target of skilling 500 million people by 2022.

As the proportion of working age group of 15-59 years will be increasing steadily, India has the advantage of ‘demographic dividend’. Harnessing the demographic dividend through appropriate skill development efforts would provide an opportunity to achieve inclusion and productivity within the country and also a reduction in the global skill shortages. Large scale skill development is thus an imminent imperative.

Major challenge of skill development initiatives is also to address the needs of huge population by providing skills in order to make them employable and help them secure ‘decent work.’ Skill development for persons working in the unorganized sector is a key strategy in that direction. This will also inculcate dignity of labour and create greater awareness towards environmental, safety and health concerns. Planned development of skills must be underpinned by a ‘policy’, which is both comprehensive as well as national in character. A national policy response is, therefore, needed to guide the skill development strategies and coordinated action by all stake holders to avoid a piecemeal approach. It is also important that the policies of skill development be linked to policies in the economic, employment and social development arenas. The country is poised at a moment in history when a much brighter future for its entire people is within its reach. Skill development will help actualize this potential. Development and articulation of a national policy on skill development is a matter of priority.

Skills development initiatives for unorganized sectors workers are significant steps taken by the Government of India. Hon’able Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi has a dream to make Indian workforce skilled and competent to meet the global demand of skilled and professional trained workforce. It is true that there is huge unorganized sector in India, which is contribution for the nation. Taking this view into mind for providing skilled workforce, The Maharashtra Government has been more actively engaged with the skills development agenda than many other states. In 2010, India’s labour force was estimated to be 478 million, 52% of the labour force in India is employed in the agriculture sector, with 34% employed in the service sector and remaining 14% in industry. The comparative figures for employment in agricultural sector in China, Russia and Brazil are about 42%, 28% and 22% , respectively . The unemployment rate in India is 11%, ranking at 118th in the world. However, of India’s current workforce of 478 million, only about 14% are involved in the formal economy; 86% are therefore in the unorganized sector.

In 2004-05, the Unorganized sector accounted for 86% of total workers. Between 1999-2000 and 2004- 05, of the total incremental employment generated in the Unorganized sector. Employment projections forecast a gradual shift in employment from agriculture towards industry by 2016-17. However, a majority of these jobs will continue to be in the Unorganized sector.

The programmes of Ministry of Rural Development’s (MoRD) for self-employment and creation of assets started with Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) in the year 1980. During the 9th plan period, Self-Employment Programmes were revamped by merging the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), the Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA), the Supply of Improved Tool-Kits to Rural Artisans (SITRA), the Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM), the Ganga Kalyan Yojana (GKY) and the Million Wells Scheme (MWS) into a holistic self-employment scheme called Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY). It graduated in 2004 to Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)- Special Projects.

The SGSY special projects provided time-bound training and capacity building for bringing a specific number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families above poverty through skilling and placement in jobs that provided regular wage employment. Up until May 2013, around 8.60 lakh have been trained and 6.80 lakh youth have been given employment.

During the 12th Plan, MoRD has been given the target to skill 50 lakh rural BPL youth. Accordingly, the strategy has been revised and a decision taken to move from direct implementation by the Central government to further builds capacities of State Governments for implementation of various plans.

Aajeevika Skills is the skill and placement initiative of the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India (MoRD). It evolved out of the need to diversify incomes of the rural poor and to cater to the occupational aspirations of their youth. The programme’s focus is on skilling and placement in the formal sector for rural youth who are poor. Aajeevika Skills has its origins in the ‘Special Projects’ component of the

Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY).

Another initiative of Central and State Government will be included in the research “The Maharashtra Rural Livelihood Innovative Forum” now “Late Pramod Mahajan Skill Development Scheme” is a quest to find the most promising livelihoods initiatives in Maharashtra that are scalable and make a significant impact on livelihoods enhancement of the poor. The aim of the initiative is to create an ecosystem for social entrepreneurship and encourage sustainable, scalable and measurable livelihoods innovation.

 Introduction

India is a South Asian Nation, and the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. India boasts of an immensely rich cultural heritage including numerous languages, traditions and people. The country holds its uniqueness in its diversity and hence has adapted itself to international changes with poise and comfort. Indian villagers take up farming, advanced agriculture and unique handicrafts as their profession on one

hand while modern industries and professional services sectors are coming up in a big way on the other.

Approximately 85% of 460 million strong labour forces are categorized as unorganized sector workers. Defined broadly, unorganized sector workers are those who do not have contracted employment with a formal sector employer and are engaged as home - based, self - employed or wage workers. Many personalities have given their views about Poverty are:

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”

- Mahatma Gandhi

 “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom. Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom. Of course, the task will not be easy. But not to do this would be a crime against humanity, against which I ask all humanity

now to rise up."

-    Nelson Mandela

National Rural Livelihood Mission

The Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana, better known as the SGSY programme, was restructured into the National Rural Livelihoods Mission by the Government of India in 2010. This reconfiguration has been a result of recommendations from stakeholder consultations with state governments, civil society organizations, bankers and academicians among others. The programme also includes livelihood programmes that demonstrated the value in building self-managed institutions of the poor and their amalgamation for effective poverty reduction. Conceivably, the largest poverty reduction programme for women in the world, the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) aims at reaching nearly 70 million rural households in 12 states of India that account for 85% of

the rural poor households in the country. The NRLM will be funded jointly by the Government of India and the World Bank over the next seven years. While the GOI will invest US$5.1 billion including expected allocation for 12th Five‐Year Plan, the World Bank is committing US$1 billion through its national rural livelihoods project (NRLP)—its largest single investment in a poverty reduction program. Apart from the GOI and the WB, the NRLM will leverage funds from formal finance, other public sector programs, the private sector, and CSOs in support of rural poverty reduction.

The Maharashtra State Rural Livelihoods Mission (MSRLM) has been launched in Maharashtra in July 2011 as a registered organization under the aegis of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) – Aajeevika - endeavors to impact rural poverty through a range of comprehensive and strategic livelihoods interventions in a time bound manner. The Mission aims at eradication of rural poverty by building sustainable institutions of poor and ultimately leading them to sustainable livelihoods. The conceptualization and design of the MSRLM goes beyond income generation activities and employment programs to include capacity building, financial inclusion, social mobilization and marketing services as equally important elements of livelihoods enhancement. The exponential growth in the livelihoods sector as a whole, both rural and urban, combined with experiences, has led to a shift in the envisioning of the mission from an agency-beneficiary relationship to a more holistic and equal partnership with the poor. Including Building and strengthening institutions of the poor, putting in place dedicated support structures for such institutions and drawing upon their skills, knowledge and desire to overcome poverty lie at the core of the mission.

Salient Features of the MRLIF

·         Plays a critical role in rural livelihoods improvement on a large scale

·         Facilitates continuous integration of livelihoods innovations across sub-sectors

·         Focus on partnering with multiple stakeholders and agencies including social entrepreneurs, civil society organizations, the corporate, the government, development agencies and academia - by leveraging their respective strengths in developing viable business models at scaled up levels as well as providing incentives and encouraging investments in rural livelihoods.

·         A unique initiative of the Government of Maharashtra towards strengthening rural livelihoods

Objectives of MRLIF

The MRLIF is a quest to find the most promising livelihoods initiatives in Maharashtra that are scalable and make a significant impact on livelihoods enhancement of the poor. The aim of the initiative is to create an ecosystem for social entrepreneurship and encourage sustainable, scalable and measurable livelihoods innovation.

Skill Development Initiative Scheme

Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development, under the Chairmanship of

Prime Minister has been set up as an apex institution for policy direction and review. The Ministers for Human Resource Development, Finance, Industries, Rural Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Labour and Employment and Micro Small & Medium Enterprises are members. Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Chairperson of the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, Chairperson of the National Skill Development Corporation and 6 experts in the area of skill development are other members. Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister is the Member Secretary to the Council.

SDI Scheme formulated by DGET aims at providing short term demand driven vocational training courses to school leavers, existing workers, ITI graduates to improve their employability. Currently, Modular Employable Skills (MES) is being offered under this Scheme. MES aims at imparting minimum skills set through its short terms and flexible course curriculum to prepare the trainees for gainful employment. There are about 6400 vocational training centers providing vocational training to around 1 million people annually in 1257 courses.

Directorate of Vocational Education & Training, Mumbai (DVET) Directorate of Vocational Education & Training, Mumbai (DVET) is the apex authority for vocational training an education in the State. This Directorate has been further divided into (a) Director, Training; and (b) Director, vocational Education

Director, Training looks after the various schemes related with CTS (ITIs), ATS, MES

& other important schemes, • Director, Vocational Education looks after the schemes related to Pre S.S.C. Level Vocational Education, +2 Level Vocational Education, Certificate Courses of MSBVE & other important Schemes. Further, all these schemes are monitored by Department of Higher & Technical Education at the state level, while at the central government level, these schemes under Director, Training are monitored by Ministry of Labour & Employment, DGET, New Delhi. Whereas Ministry of Human Resource Department, New Delhi monitors the schemes under Director, Vocational Education are monitored.

Challenges to Skill Development in India

By 2022, India will have the maximum number of working age population in the world. The FICCI-KPMG Global Skills Report has noted that if properly skilled, they can contribute to economic growth. But there are many challenges to skilling in India. Some of them are:

• Problem in Mobilization
• Student mobilization to get trained has been a major concern due to the traditional mindset, low willingness to migrate, low salaries at entry level.
• Issues in Employers’ Buy-In
• The employer does not distinguish whether an employee has picked up skills on the job or he has acquired them through formal training,
• Problems In Scalability
• Scaling up aspirations to current jobs as well as getting the right kind of training partners and effective stakeholder management are important.
• Mismatch between youth aspirations and jobs
• Finding students to fill the classrooms and getting people to accept new kind of jobs have been difficult,
• Ensuring Minimum Wages
• At present, wages are linked with categorization of ‘skilled’, ‘semi-ski lied’ or ‘unskilled’, but these have to be aligned with skill levels defined as per National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) and recognition of higher level of skills in terms of minimum wages is noted.

What can be done?

• With just about 2% of the country’s labour force having formal skill certification, government and industry must create pull factors to attract workers to get vocational training. For this, there is a need to create the macro and micro policies to encourage workers.
• The government should include a minimum percentage of certified skilled work forces in the tendering process of every manpower intensive project and increase the minimum percentage every year.
• At a local level, the industry can enforce it by ensuring that ancillary service providers like drivers, housekeeping and security staff have skill certification.
• Minimum wages need to be re-looked and aligned to the levels defined in the National Skills Qualification Framework.

Roadblocks to quality skill training

There are several challenges that are faced by the government in imparting quality skill training to the youth of the country. These challenges include:

• Increasing capacity and capability of the existing system to ensure equitable access for all
• Maintaining quality and relevance
• Creating effective convergence between school education and the government’s skill development efforts
• Creating institutional mechanism for research development quality assurance, examinations and certification, affiliations and accreditation
• Mobilizing adequate investment for financing skill development

 Conclusion

There will be a huge required of skilled workforce in the country. Our Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has initiated various programmes like Make in India projects, which require the workforce which can match the global requirement and demand. So it is very serious issue that India should also develop its workforce to meet the requirement of global Companies and Industries. So This Study will also analyze the current and future demand of various industries, which will also help to the nation to provide skilled workforce to the country and ultimately they will contribute to the economic reformation of the nation. Conclusion of Research will be given after research completes.

References:

1. www.developmentchannel.org

2. www. wikipedia.org/wiki/Below_Poverty_Line_(India)

3. Annual Report to the People on Employment, Ministry of Labour and

Employment, Government of India, 2010

4. Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2011-2012

5. Skill Development in India - The Vocational Education and Training System, The

World Bank, 2007

6. National Policy on Skill Development Scheme Document

7. www.deloitte.com/in

 Title: “An investigation on the centrality of e-Entrepreneurship over conventional Brick- &-Mortar concept.”

Author:

Mr. Amit Arya

Faculty

BBA Department

Dhanwate National College, Nagpur

Email Id: mailtoamitarya@gmail.com

Co-Author:

Dr. Preeti R. Gotmare

Post Doctoral Fellow

PGTD, Department of Commerce

RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur

Email Id: preeti.r.gotmare@gmail.com

 Keywords: e-Business, e-Entrepreneurship, e-Commerce, Brick & Mortar entrepreneurs.

Abstract: Most of the literature on entrepreneurship relates to the traditional "brick-and-mortar" type. A review of contemporary research in entrepreneurship literature suggests that online entrepreneurs are different from regular or "brick-and-mortar" entrepreneurs. This paper attempts to collate all variables used in prior research to describe entrepreneurs and their ventures into a comprehensive framework. This investigation considers four major aspects of entrepreneurship: characteristics of individuals starting the venture; technology used in the venture; the environment in which the venture operates and the process by which the venture is created. Such an investigation can provide useful insights into the process of online entrepreneurship by showing it to be a complex, multi-factor phenomenon.

Introduction:

E-entrepreneurship describes entrepreneurship in e-business. The e-dimension of entrepreneurship incorporates all the key elements of entrepreneurship including risk-taking, proactivity, and innovation in building, running and managing e-business. The concept of e entrepreneurship is not limited to small e-businesses but includes corporate e-intrapreneurship which is embedded in establishing e infrastructure to do e-business in large organizations. E-business operates in a fast-moving, highly uncertain, unknowable and unpredictable context, and as such entrepreneurship in e-business by necessity exceeds the traditional concepts of entrepreneurship.

For example, the traditional notion of entrepreneurship of being or becoming an expert or finding and protecting a unique knowledge in a niche market, clashes with the fact that e-business knowledge is often short-lived and available to everyone, anytime, and anywhere (Steinberg, 2003, 2004).

Current research in entrepreneurship tends to focus on or prove the notion that entrepreneurs are different from non-entrepreneurs (1) or that entrepreneurial firms are different from non-entrepreneurial firms (2). In these studies, the basic assumption is that all entrepreneurs and their new ventures are homogenous. The focus of this paper is on differences between brick-and-mortar entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who conduct ventures completely online. Differences between these two may be greater than the differences between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs and those between entrepreneurial firms and non-entrepreneurial firms, as discovered in the studies mentioned earlier. Once we identify and recognize that online entrepreneurs are different from regular entrepreneurs, it becomes necessary to find a way to classify those online ventures.

The meaning of entrepreneurship and its measurement has been discussed in several studies. (3) Determinants of entrepreneurship have been the focus of several studies covering a wide range of theories and explanations (Brock and Evans, 1989; Gavron, Cowling, Holtham and Westall, 1998; OECD, 1998; Blanchflower, 2000, 2004; Verheul, Wennekers and Thurik, 2002; Arenius and Minniti, 2005). Entrepreneurship has been found to be a significant factor in economic development of countries ((Baumol, 1990; Wennekers and Thurik, 1999; Carree and Thurik, 2003, 2006; Acs et al., 2005). The extent of entrepreneurship has been found to vary systematically across countries and across time (Rees and Shah, 1986; Wit and Van Winden, 1989; Blanchflower and Meyer, 1994; Blanchflower, 2000, 2004). However, similar research on "online entrepreneurship" is sparse, even though the coverage of "online" entrepreneurship is truly global.

Interest in international entrepreneurship has increased rapidly over the past decade (Brush, 1993, 1995; Hitt and Bartkus, 1997; Hisrich et al., 1995). Scholars have observed the close theoretical link between entrepreneurship and international business (IB) research (Hisrich et al., 1994; McDougall and Oviatt, 2000). However, a conceptual framework for analyzing "online entrepreneurship" has yet to be developed formally in the field of online entrepreneurship. It is this gap that this paper purports to fill.

The conceptual framework that is developed in this paper will provide a way of analyzing past research studies. Each study can be broken down into types of individuals, organizations, environment of internet and processes that were studied. This paper will not seek to answer questions such as how online ventures are started or provide theoretical models of online entrepreneurship. Instead, it will provide a different perspective on the online entrepreneur; a shift that will emphasize the complexities and variations involved in online entrepreneurship.

The goal of coming up with a framework is not to smooth differences between brick-&-mortar entrepreneurship and online entrepreneurship and come up with typical properties of a typical entrepreneur. The goal is to identify specific variables that describe how online entrepreneurship is created, in order that meaningful contrasts and comparisons among new ventures can be made.

Growth of Online Entrepreneurship:

The internet-based commerce has been stealing billions of dollars away from traditional retail outlets, and is becoming a significant component of global sales of a growing enterprise. Once we acknowledge that online entrepreneurship is becoming more and more significant in today's business world, it then becomes necessary to find a framework for systematically discovering and evaluating the similarities and differences among new online ventures. The population of entrepreneurs may be homogenous but the subset of "online" entrepreneurs within the entrepreneurial universe must be further analyzed so that entrepreneurial research can produce meaningful results. A primary value of such a framework for describing online entrepreneurship presented here is that it provides a systematic means of comparing and contrasting brick-and-mortar ventures with online ventures. In addition, it provides a way to conceptualize variation and complexity in entrepreneurship (Gartner, 1985).

Existing frameworks of entrepreneurship consider variables such as country effects, role of government intervention, supply of resources and willingness of entrepreneurs. One such framework was developed by Morris & Kuratko (2002) (see Figure 1) in which they compared the entrepreneurial changes taking place in different phases.

Fig: 1

They empirically tested this framework and discovered that factors such as lack of financial support and perceived administrative bureaucracies at government levels did not influence levels of motivation. Another conceptual framework of entrepreneurship went deeper by distinguishing itself from domestic entrepreneurship.

Fig: 2

The organizational factors include the top management team and other assets available to the organization. In this framework, strategic and environmental factors are considered as moderators of the relationship between organizational factors and international entrepreneurship dimensions. The benefits of going international by an entrepreneur are described under competitive advantages in the form of financial and non-financial outcomes.

Fig: 3

The two frameworks of entrepreneurship described above consider entrepreneurship as a culmination of several forces. They distinguish between domestic and international entrepreneurship. These frameworks are woefully inadequate in explaining factors that lead entrepreneurs to go online, as opposed to going international.

To illustrate how these two frameworks are inadequate, consider the case of an online business such as eharmony.com. Dr. Neil Clark Warren, a renowned relationship expert and author of several books, started this firm in 1999. Within two years of its formation, this firm was profitable and, in 2003, the chairman received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award from Ernst and Young. Existing frameworks on entrepreneurship would focus on factors such as government influences, management characteristics and strategic factors, but would minimize or ignore the use of technology in the success of the entrepreneurship venture. In the case of eharmony.com, it was the convenience, anonymity and provision of a unique matchmaking service that led to its success. It is in this light that we develop a framework for explaining online entrepreneurship.

An Investigation:

The word "entrepreneur" has been defined in various ways and it has been a semantic problem in the study of entrepreneurship ((Brockhaus (1980); Komives (1969); Long (1983)). It is necessary to define "online entrepreneur" clearly so that the complexity and variation of that concept is clearly identified. For our purposes, we will define online entrepreneurship to mean any venture conducted solely on the internet or the World Wide Web. It encompasses activities of a regular entrepreneur, but the mode of operation is technologically based. It recognizes that online entrepreneurship has distinct characteristics than typical entrepreneurship. These distinct characteristics themselves lead to different and complex problems faced by an online entrepreneur. For example, the problem of security within an online transaction is very different from that in a regular, brick-and-mortar retail operation. The concept of taking a "test drive" of a product may be completely absent when dealing with an online site, unless that site is offering a "demo" version of a piece of software that can be easily downloaded and used.

The classification of entrepreneurs for the purpose of understanding the concept of entrepreneurship has been extensively researched (e.g. see Danhoff (1949), Cole (1959), Daily (1971), Smith (1967), Filley and Aldag (1980), Vesper (1979, 1980), Cooper (1979), Cooper and Dunkelberg (1981)).

A framework for describing the concept of online entrepreneurship is similar to Gartner's (1985) framework of understanding new venture creation, but has been modified to include the "online" nature of the venture. The "individual" is the entrepreneur who started this venture and the "organization" is the form of the venture. The World Wide Web is the environment in which the entrepreneur operates and the process is the detailed steps the entrepreneur undertakes to perform in the venture.

Fig: 4

Individual:

The attributes of an individual who starts a new venture have been extensively studied in traditional entrepreneurship literature. Those characteristics typically apply to an entrepreneur starting a venture in the real world, as opposed to an online world. For an online venture, an individual needs to possess different skills. The requirement of being a team player, as mentioned in Cooper (1979), may not be relevant for a one-man-based online business that is selling items on, for example, eBay. Other requirements--propensity to take risk, age, previous work experience, entrepreneurial parents, etc.--that are extensively studied in entrepreneurship literature may not be appropriate to be successful in an online environment. A good knowledge of basic HTML language, or electronic payments, or shopping cart software may be more appropriate for an individual undertaking an online venture, though such technical knowledge may not be relevant nowadays considering one can buy or download off-the-shelf software solutions. In the framework that has been developed, we consider the desire to use technology as a primary driver of business or "tech-savvies" to be an important variable influencing the success of an online venture. Other factors such as interpersonal skills, presence of a foreign accent, and location of the venture may lose importance in an online setting where the sole proprietor-entrepreneur is the only key player, though such factors could be very important in a traditional business setting. However, these factors do become more important as organization structures become more complex, such as partnerships, corporations and other forms. In such cases of complex organization structures, we can replace the "individual" with "management personnel."

World Wide Web:

Most transactions in an online business venture occur through the internet (in our study, it is synonymous with the World Wide Web or cyberspace). Payment and delivery may occur through traditional means, such as use of delivery services, checks and money orders, but orders are typically initiated on the venture's website. Information about products and services are made available through the site, which acts as a storefront for the business. The barriers to entry and exit are minimal in the online world, thereby making it easy for competitors to step in and take customers of an online business away. It also forces an online entrepreneur to be creative in how he or she sets up the storefront, what terms are offered, how to select a domain name, and what kind of advertising medium to use. In the arena of online entrepreneurship, there is a scarcity of research on environmental variables, though there are several studies (Bruno and Tyabjee (1982); Williamson (1975), etc.) detailing environmental variables that stimulate entrepreneurship.

Organization:

Most of the studies in entrepreneurship focus on manufacturing firms (Smith (1967); Cooper (1970), Collins and Moore (1977)). Litzinger (1965) used motel firms in his sample. Researchers in these studies have shown no distinction between the type of entrepreneurial firms in their studies, thereby making it difficult to apply their conclusions across all industries and for online firms. Many online businesses are set up as sole proprietorships or partnerships, though the larger online firms are set up as corporations. The evolution of the online firm depends heavily on factors such as "eyeballs attracted" or "revenues generated." The exit strategy for successful online firms is either to offer capital to the general investing public in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) or to be sold to an existing corporation, with the founders of the business continuing to work for the venture they founded. In this respect, an online entrepreneur may choose to have a professional team of managers installed in his organization or to just operate the firm as a sole proprietor.

In recent times we have witnessed a series joint ventures and strategic alliances between cross-border online corporations shaking hands to have an exchange of technological priorities, production factors like land and labour and most importantly creating a new market base and hold it even stronger.

Process:

The "process" portion of traditional entrepreneurship studies relates a series of steps that an entrepreneur needs to perform to be successful. In the online setup, the process aspect of entrepreneurship involves performing a different series of steps. Gartner (1985) summarizes the process of entrepreneurship into six common behaviours: deciding on a location, accumulation of resources, marketing of products, production activities, setting up of an organization and responding to government and society. Some of the behaviours are applicable to an online entrepreneur (accumulation of resources, marketing, organizing and responding to external environment). However, one can add the following new behaviours to this list for an online entrepreneur: securing the online transaction process, indulging in search engine optimization, safeguarding privacy, and protecting online assets. The process of online entrepreneurship is closely tied to the hardware and software used in the venture. Constant updating and upgrading of these tools is key in an online setting, although assets like land and building are not upgraded as often in the traditional business environment.

Conclusions:

Separate listing key variables involved in a successful online venture under the appropriate dimension of the conceptual framework demonstrates the complexity of the online entrepreneurship. These key variables are very different from those used in studies of traditional entrepreneurship models. Earlier studies on entrepreneurship fail to differentiate the needs of the online entrepreneur from those of regular entrepreneurs or even non-entrepreneurs. An online entrepreneur selling, for example, coffee operates in a very different environment when compared with the environment of a coffee shop owner. By lumping these two entrepreneurs together in traditional entrepreneurship studies, we fail to see that generalizations about entrepreneurs cannot easily be carried over to online entrepreneurs. The conceptual framework presented in this paper provides a way of analyzing entrepreneurship in the online environment by clearly identifying relevant variables. Any new research in online entrepreneurship can then be designed to account for the unique traits of online entrepreneurship. Another benefit of using the conceptual framework pertains to resolution of conflicts noticed in earlier entrepreneurship studies. For instance, Collins and Moore (1970) and Cooper (1970) come up with different traits that are required for a successful entrepreneur, but these studies failed to look at the quality of their data. Collins and Moore (1970) looked at manufacturing firms whereas Cooper (1970) studies high technology firms.

The framework developed in this paper can be used as a basis for future research in online entrepreneurship and for reporting results from such studies. Assuming the sample will consist of only online entrepreneurial firms, the researcher can study each of the four dimensions and compare results with other researchers on the same dimensions. For instance, a researcher may ask: Is there any difference in age, work experience and educational backgrounds between entrepreneurs who have storefronts on Amazon versus Yahoo? Are business-to-business (B2B) stores different from business-to-government (B2G) stores on any of the four dimensions of the framework? Is the process of starting an online retail site different from an online dating site? Online ventures that share meaningful similarities across the four dimensions can be classified and described together, resulting in useful generalizations.

The fast growth and business success of companies such as eBay, Amazon.com, travel.com and priceline.com, along with the bankruptcy of numerous dotcom firms worldwide in 2000 hold potent management implications for IT innovation and entrepreneurial organizations worldwide. As such, e-entrepreneurship and e-innovation have become emerging disciplines for proactively responding to changes in the e-business world.

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Prakash L Dheeriya, Department of Finance, California State University-Dominguez Hills, Carson

(1.) See Brockhaus, 1980; Carland et al., 1984; Collins and Moore, 1964; DeCarlo and Lyons, 1979; Hornaday and Aboud, 1971; Howell, 1972; Komives, 1972; Litzinger, 1965; McClelland, 1961; McClelland and Winter, 1969; Palmer, 1971; Schrier, 1975; Shapiro, 1975.

(2.) See Collins and Moore, 1970; Cooper, 1979; Smith, 1967; Thorne and Ball, 1981.

(3.) See Hebert and Link, 1982; Bull and Willard, 1993; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; OECD, 1998; Praag, 1999.

Steinberg, A. (2004). Entrepreneurship and success in e-business: on changing meanings of expertise and community in e-entrepreneurship. London: The London School of Economics and Political Science.