India is growing rapidly both in terms of technology and population. This has caused an expansion of the market. Many industries are willing to set up their branch in India, as it offers cheap labor, liberalized economic policies, and vast spaces to set up the industries. But the abundance of labor does not ensure skilled labor. Skilled labors are required to complete the work efficiently and to produce a high standard of goods and services. From the leather industries, massive waste is produced. The labors must ensure that the produced waste is dumped or destroyed appropriately. For this, the labor must necessarily have waste management skills.
Skills that are needed in the leather industry to manage the waste include:
1. The person must be able to grasp the complexity of a situation.
2. Leather industry produces waste which contains organic matter, chromium, sulfide etc and they need to process before sending them out. Hence, the labor must have the technical skills required to process the waste, else it may harm and pollute the environment.
3. Solid wastes like flesh, rawhide, hair, shavings, wet blue splits, etc are produced. They need to be decomposed properly else would pollute land, air, and water. Only people who are trained to decompose these wastes can carry out this work precisely.
4. Low waste technologies need skilled personnel and satisfactory technical control.
5. Must have the ability to identify and solve an issue.
6. Must have the knowledge about the waste that is produced and their harmful effects.
7. Must have the knowledge about managing and decomposing the waste that is produced.
8. Must be able to identify any issue that occurs during the waste management process.
9. If any types of machinery are used for the decomposition or breakdown process, then the person must be able to operate it.
Skill gap in the leather industry
Skill gap refers to the gap between the employers, who want their employees to work in a particular fashion, and the employees who work according to their skillset. In the leather industry, there is some skilled labor to do the work but they’re not many to manage and process the waste. This leads to the vacancy for labors, who can efficiently manage the waste.
NEEM scheme role in solving this issue:
The National Employability Mission has been launched to help the unemployed youth. Many youths after completing their degree are unemployed. This is mainly because of the lack of skills. The NEEM helps the youth in acquiring the skills which are required to get employed in the industry. NEEM offers skill development training through apprenticeships. This would help both the candidate and nation. The nation would have more skilled labors and less unemployment rate. The candidate would be hired by industry or company and would be able to start his career. Skilled workers are crucial to the industry as they provide superior goods and services, complete their work on time and are methodical.
