Union Budget 2012 :: Focus on Skills Development and Infrastructure
- Part 1 -

Gitchandra S Oinam *

This time, Union Budget 2012 shall not left Manipur in lurch. Once the Information and Knowledge Management project is successful, our long demand for removal of AFSPA will go from Manipur phase wise. Beside, we shall not ignore the problem faced by the women and children. Special scheme has to be introduced immediately to facilitate women in conflict states specially widows and lower income groups.

Before highlighting pre-budget discussion of Union Budget-2012 to be presented on 16th March, know about the man who will be presenting Union Budget-2012!

76 years old Congress leader Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Union finance Minister was rated as the 'Finance Minister of the Year for Asia 2010', by London-based magazine 'Emerging Markets'. The title was awarded to him for his "ability to steer the Indian economy through the global financial crisis and balancing growth with fiscal responsibility." In 1984, Pranab Mukherjee was rated as the 'Best Finance Minister in the World' by 'Euro money' magazine. Pranab Mukherjee will present the Budget for seventh time in history, thus becoming the Finance Minister to have made third highest number of budget speeches.

Pranab Mukherjee was born on 11 December 1935 in a small village, Mirati of Birbhum District in West Bengal. He is a son of Shri Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee, a respected freedom fighter spent more than 10 years in British jails. His parliamentary career was begun as a Rajya Sabha member from Congress Party in 1969. In 1997 Pranab Mukherjee was voted Outstanding Parliamentarian. Active in West Bengal politics, he was the president of the state's unit of Congress since 1985, but resigned in July 2010. Well-respected by politicians of all parties, Pranab Mukherjee is the Congress party's main troubleshooter and has often been called upon to guide the party through difficult situations. He is married, and has two sons and one daughter. His children are all good "like father like son!"

The UPA wants to unleash a new approach to skills development in its penultimate Budget before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. But there is a hitch in announcing the new skills framework to make youth more employable by training 500 million people over the next decade. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has asked Tata Consultancy Services vice-chairman S Ramadorai to urgently untangle the crosshairs between the two ministries (HRD and Labour) so that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's Budget speech can make a clear statement about the UPA's 'Big Idea' for developing skills. Ramadorai is the skills advisor to the Prime Minister and holds the rank of a Cabinet minister.

Singh stepped into the imbroglio over skills development, a subject close to his heart, at a meeting in late February where it was pointed out that no country has two departments evolving independent frameworks on the same subject. Ramadorai's intervention is expected to begin with a meeting early this week with top officials from the two ministries along with Planning Commission member Narendra Jadhav.

With a view to overcome the shortage of skilled manpower in the Indian gems and jewellery industry, NSDC, co-promoted by the Union finance ministry with the mandate of involving the private sector in training people, has identified 21 sectors for which 150 million people will be trained by 2022 and gems and jewellery is one of the focused segments.

The healthcare industry in partnership with the government plans to train as many as 4.8 million skilled healthcare-allied workers over the next 10 years to fill the industry's massive manpower shortage.

The initiative will be executed through Healthcare Sector Skill Council (HSSC), an industry body that will be run by a 15-member governing group comprising representatives of healthcare industry, members of Medical Council of India, Nursing Council, Quality council of India and Health ministry, among others. Corporate hospitals, small private clinics and existing medical colleges can provide training once they are registered with the council, which will also certify the courses. The council is in the process of finalizing the curriculum and appointing a full time CEO. These trained people will be eligible to work at both government and private hospitals.

To begin with, the council has proposed eight courses, which have been identified after a detailed review and feedback from the industry requirements and the skills needed to be employable. These are nursing assistants, auxiliary nursing midwives, emergency technicians, ECG technicians, radiology technicians, laboratory technicians, dialysis technicians and special assistants for elderly patients.

At present, the $65 billion domestic healthcare industry is growing at around 20% a year and according to ratings agency Fitch, the Indian healthcare sector will swell to $100 billion by 2015. But the industry faces acute shortage of skilled manpower, which the industry believes will be a constraint to growth.

According to Reddy, the country needs to quadruple the number of such allied medical services workers to 10 million from 2.5 million currently to meet the industry's requirement.

The programme is part of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a public-private partnership body that plans to train as many as 500 million skilled workers across 30 sectors by 2020. NSDC will also aid the initiative. At present, such technicians are trained by standalone training centers that have their own standards and curriculum, many are not recognized by the authorities and therefore not eligible to work for government healthcare centres. "In most cases, the skill levels are also not adequate," an industry executive said.

Skype, biometrics, M-health (use of mobile phones) and E-health are all set to make an entry into India's primary health centres (PHCs) and sub-centres as the health ministry plans to go hi-tech. The steering committee on health said that in the 12th plan (2012-17), all district hospitals would be linked to leading tertiary care centres through telemedicine, Skype and similar audio visual media. M-health will be used to speed up transmission of data.

India will also put in place a Citizen Health Information System (CHIS) - a biometric based health information system which will constantly update health record of every citizen-family. The system will incorporate registration of births, deaths and cause of death. Maternal and infant death reviews, nutrition surveillance, particularly among under-six children and women, service delivery in the public health system, hospital information service besides improving access of public to their own health information and medical records would be the primary function of the CHIS.

The ministry plans to give a big push to support telemedicine services in primary, secondary and tertiary care. Disease surveillance based on reporting by providers and clinical laboratories (public and private) to detect and act on disease outbreaks and epidemics would be an integral component of the system.

"The system will also support financial management - from resource allocation, resource transfers, accounting and utilization to financial services like making of payments to facilities, providers and beneficiaries. It will provide a platform for continuing medical education and support regulatory functions of the state by creating a nation-wide registration of clinical establishments, manufacturing units, drug testing laboratories, licensing of drugs, approval of clinical trials," the document added.

Beside, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee may move to boost infrastructure in the Budget. To allow tax free bonds of at least Rs 50,000 crore by government undertakings like NHAI, HUDCO & ports.

To be continued....