By- Group1L

Pros & Cons Of National Employment Enhancement HARSH SHARMA: 2019PGP019

Mission (NEEM) Training Under The All India Council Of LOKARE SNEHAL: 2019PGP030
Technical Education Scheme On Skill Development PA N K A J R A N J A N : 2019PGP037
V A I S H A L I M AT H PA L : 2019PGP062
Which Commenced In April 2013. V I K A S G O YA L : 2019PGP064
 OVERVIEW
National Employability Enhancement Mission (NEEM) is governed by the
All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

 With the target of skilling 500 million people by 2022, the Government of India came up with its ambitious
programme of National Employability Enhancement Mission (NEEM). NEEM’s paramount focus is to provide
apprenticeship training to individuals have qualifications ranging from 10th pass to masters.

 PROBLEM THAT IS THERE:

- Despite having one of the largest youngest workforces, the country continues to lag in various sector. To a large
extent, it is the country’s higher education program that is culpable for the dire situation in which the country
stands today. While the theoretical aspects and rote learning are extolled, practical education is snubbed off
even in courses which are destined to yield professional vocation. Hence, a ginormous proportion of the
graduates are termed as “unemployable” in India.

 To redeem the country of this problem, an umbrella plan to incorporate those who couldn’t pursue further
education and to give hands-on job training experience to the graduates, NEEM scheme came into being.

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 GOALS
NEEM’s primary goal was to allow young workforce of this country to earn a respectable
stipend and in the process of learning becoming employable and consequently amalgamate
themselves into the work force.
The target of skilling 500 million people by 2022

 ADDITIONAL GOALS
The ambitious plan was marketed heavily and aligned with yet another enterprising campaign of “Make in
India.”
Moreover, not only the prospective employees, but also the employers were expected to reap the benefits
of the scheme for they will be able to acquire a large talent pool san having to go on a hunt for employable
workers.
Learning from the past mistakes which underscore the inundation of such schemes into the quagmire of
red-tapism, the government came up with the Apprentices (Amendment) Bill of 2014, which aimed at
expediting labour reports and ameliorating the conditions of apprentices in the industry.
NEEM also emphasized a generally overlooked factors in other similar schemes: scaling and coordination.
Scaling of apprenticeship programmes and coordination between such different programs are as much
formidable as much as it is quintessential.

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 CURRENT SITUATION
Currently, only 2.8 lakh trainees are trained as against the central and state
governments’ 4.9 lakh seats

. This chasm is extant because while policy is being formulated, the issues of scaling and coordination among
already existing schemes are often given a cold shoulder by the policymakers.

 For instance, there are two apprenticeship programs in India. One being run by Ministry of Human Resource
Development (MHRD) and the other by Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, both the
programs work in silos and there is no provision to facilitate an integration between the program.

NEEM however, being an overarching agenda of the GoI precludes such impediments. It is scalable because its
constitution gives it an “explicit entrance” to 21 industries. Moreover, being a pilot program of the country, it is able
to ride over various problems which plague small apprenticeship program.

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 BENEFITS
NEEM’s constitution has also been worked out keeping both the
employees and employer in mind.
Stringent rules applicable for being a NEEM facilitator prevents otherwise hoodwinking of workers.

In tandem with this, regular stipend which has to be at par with the prescribed minimum wages for the particular
industry and online facilitation like regular monthly progress report and certification letter on AICTE portal are indeed
enabling for the trainees.

Employers too are equally benefitted from the scheme. Issues like absenteeism can be easily controlled because
the agreement exists from the facilitator and the trainee and provisos for the same can be incorporated into such
agreements.

Engagement with the company doesn’t guarantee, giving employers the right to sack those trainees whose
performance are not up to the mark.

If the trainee has been showing a dereliction of duty or any such act thereof, the agreement can be terminated with
a notice of 30 days. Also, with the auto-expiry of the contract after the period of contract is over, employers get the
chance to review the performance of the trainee in the period and then take their decision based on such analysis.

The scheme therefore takes a holistic view of the expanse and yields benefit to all the stakeholders.
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 LOOPHOLES
Loopholes exist everywhere, and the grave lacunae that exist here are
indeed nightmarish.
The trainees can be hired on an agreement that can range from 3 months to 3 years and in spite of working full
hours, they are alienated from the rights that a regular workman who will be performing the same duties for the
same duration is entitled to.

They are not entitled to employer’s contribution to EPFO, statutory bonus, ESI (Employee’s State Insurance) and
other equivalent benefits. Leave such “distinguished” benefits, basic facilities like that of transportation and canteen
facilities (Gayithri, Tantri, & Rajasekhar, 2019).

The rampant exploitation has come to light in the wake of the slowdown through which the economy is currently
undergoing. Tamil Nadu which hosts a large number of automobile and auto parts manufacturing industries has
come up as the exemplary of exploitation of NEEM trainees (Ravishankar, 2019). Since, NEEM trainees can be
tractable ousted by just giving them a notice of 30 days and have no union standing with them (primarily because of
their transience in any particular industry), a huge number of trainees have been laid off.

Tamil Nadu is unskeptically not the only case and around the country, undoubtedly, a large proportion of these
trainees remain exploited and paralyzed by their “precariat” status in the industry.

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 CONCLUSION
The blight plaguing the NEEM scheme is that in order to work out the red tapism,
government has placed unqualified power in the hands of employers, who have thus used
NEEM as a prop to employ workers who needn’t be given any basic facilities and who would
not have any backing of unionized force, and as a consequence would be easier to oust.
Such gross violation is rife around the country and if left unchecked carries the power to
annihilate a scheme that is as ambitious as the NEEM.

THANK YOU!!