The NDA Report-Card - Has The Needle Moved At All?

From promises to commitments, policy formulations to real solutions — in the three years that Modi has been in office, we assess how his government has fared in skilling people and creating jobs

- Manav Seth

That Narendra Damodardas Modi is an able and effective leader is a fact that even the stringiest critics cannot deny. The 14th Prime Minister of the nation has captured the imagination of a vast majority of the population, and has an effective communications strategy in place which is an undeniable fact. The man has a gift for getting what he wants, as electoral victories in states and local elections have not halted despite implementing the single most economically disruptive step (of demonetization) in recent times. His achievements and short-comings are likely to be discussed feverishly in the next two years, and possibly for the next several years or decades perhaps. While several volumes of books can be (and have been) written about his performance on the economic, political, diplomatic, social and environment front, the scope of this article is restricted to evaluating two high-stakes fields: skilling and job creation. And despite all the accolades he has won, even his ardent followers cannot claim that these two areas have been significantly been calibrated.

Skill India: An experiment gone awry