India has around 600,000 villages with around 64% of its 1.3 billion people living in them. It is absurd to imagine growth without the country-side growing as fast as India's towns and cities. This nation has one of
the largest pools of unskilled labor waiting to be trained and utilized. In the absence of proper training,
awareness and motivation, it is commonplace for the rural unemployed youth to adopt alternative means of
livelihood, many of which are shunned by civil laws. Through this paper the author wishes to throw some
light on the importance of Skill Development programs, their current status, the gap that exists between the
demand and supply of skilled labor and how employability of rural youth is enhanced by imparting skill
oriented training to them. Finally, the paper also emphasizes on how skilled and employable youth
contribute to overall development of a rural economy in particular and the nation in general. Data has been
gathered from reliable secondary sources. On assumed lines, it was also concluded that the need of the hour
for India is to aggressively pursue innovative government programs like Skill India and Make in India so
that by the turn of the decade, close to half of the projected eligible population could be employed in various
state-run schemes, private organizations. Entrepreneurship is also an outcome of innovative skill
development that has immense potential for employment and thus, development of the rural landscape. The
paper limits itself to the schemes launched by the respective state governments and central governments
thus leaving room for improvement as far as measures taken by privately owned organizations and NGOs
are concerned.
