State Planning Board recommends steps to promote self-employment

Thiruvananthapuram: The State Planning Board has recommended massive skill and capacity building, infusion of technology in traditional areas, and access to finance to improve self-employment in the state. Among the 14 non-‘special category states’ Indian states, Kerala ranks 12th in terms of the share of self-employed in the total workforce in urban areas, better than only Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. In rural areas, Kerala is second last, slightly better than Tamil Nadu. The Board has identified the lack of skills for the bulk of the self-employed as a key lacuna. In order to upgrade skills for this segment, it has recommended the establishment of community skills colleges in different locations.

The objective is to increase access to quality skill training. There is also a need to establish two to three practical training centres led by the private sector in collaboration with selected government institutions for organising short- and medium-duration training programmes, ranging from few days to month-long duration with field-level exposure. The Board also want the Department of Employment to be re-designated as Department of Employment, Skills and Entrepreneurship on the lines of the Centre.

The need for intensive technology infusion has also been emphasised. It has been recommended in sectors like agriculture, and allied sectors, which hold substantial potential for enterprise and employment creation. One way of introducing technology in traditional sectors is the setting up model hi-tech green villages. All the households in the selected villages will be provided with assistance to install roof-top solar plants, rainwater harvesting structures and waste management units.

The Task Force set up by the Board had also found that the current lending flows from banks operate under several constraints. Key amongst them is the insistence of collateral or security for MSME schemes. As most entrepreneurs in this segment are unable to provide collateral or security, the Board has recommended that the state government, with the assistance of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, establish a state-specific credit guarantee fund with an initial corpus of Rs 20-30 crore. “As it stands the absence of seed and angel funding for new or first time entrepreneurs is a key lacuna. The government should ideally provide a corpus of Rs 25 crore as a one-time grant for establishing such a fund,” a top source said.