India’s march on the path of development will remain incomplete until it reaps its demographic dividend with skills and education. In this context, discuss the significance of the RISE and EQUIP schemes.

India is a country with a large number of working population. Its demography is expected to peak in 2050. India also has largest number of youths in the world, that can act as a demographic dividend.

Skill and education are two pillars to encash the population, as:

• It fulfils the skilled population demand in industry.
• Enhance employability.
• Improve human resource utilisation.
• Utilisation of population in diverse segments (agri, industry, technology, IT, etc).

However, in the absence of skill and education, the demographic dividend may become a demographic disaster. Therefore, to avoid this, the government has launched various initiatives to address the growing demands of skill. RISE and EQUIP are the example of such schemes.

Significance of RISE and EQUIP schemes:

• They aim to improve skill development among youth.
• Improve their employability by academia-industry linkage.
• Promotes vocational training.

These schemes can help youth utilize their potential and contribute to the process of fourth industrial revolution, green economy generation and in realisation of India’s goal of becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2025.