‘Atmanirbhar’ State of Mind through Entrepreneurship

Vision of PM Narendra Modi in making ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ is based on superior quality of talent, unending quest for new knowledge and technology, highly productive demographics of India and willingness to work hard to contribute to the nation which will ultimately contribute to the world.

PM Modi reminds one word of Ravindranath Tagore- “Ekla chalo re” (Lead even if you are alone) when he speaks about ‘Atmanirbhar’. It is an important streak of entrepreneurship where he needs to lead alone with the backing of science and technology to make himself competitive and create entry barriers for others which lead him towards ‘Atmanirbhar’ frame of mind.

As it stands today, GDP of India is at -7.9% and unemployment rate is to the tune of 7%. While majority of Indian population is staying in rural areas, government is also looking at strengthening few states like UP to come up with the excellence in all aspects of development inclusive of entrepreneurship.

The dilemma is when there are jobs yet they cannot be filled up as there is unemployability among the job seekers. It is due to the imbalanced educational system which we have been continuing since long. This necessitates that overall revamping of educational syllabus, industry academia participation and Outcome Based Education (OBE) is instituted and faculty is reskilled. This employability gap does not allow quotient of employability to be higher than quotient of unemployment.

Yes, there are reasons for unemployment coupled with lack of employability which becomes major challenge for India.

On one hand it may look like a challenge but on the other hand it’s the biggest opportunity. Those who accept this challenge and look as opportunities, they can create new businesses, new scientifically evidence-based products with the help of new technological innovations. Hence there is a chance of creating an environment for new normal entrepreneurship.

Four major factors for Indian unemployment

1.The major cause of rise in unemployment in India is the selection criteria which eliminates opportunity of job seekers due to reservations. This system may neglect deserving, skilled and suitable candidates.

2.In addition, another factor is India’s ever-growing population! The chase of unemployability on one hand and increasing population on the other hand creates lot of challenges to balance.

3.Rural and urban potential to provide jobs is at the moment disproportionate which creates a big gap between employability and unemployment.

4.Indian parents give lot of emphasis on educating their children irrespective of their economic status which provides an opportunity for many to start educational institutions. These increasing institutions over time creates a pool of candidates where at any given time reservoir of candidates is increasing and employability gets perplexed.

As a result, disillusionment, anger against job providers, depressive tendencies, loss of confidence and overall question of financial stability increases in those candidates who remained unemployed and get into the cycle of negativity which is not require among these candidates when they are young.

Employability is a key

Yes! There is a huge mismatch in the understanding of the skill demand between industry and educational institutes. Huge pool of graduates passing every year are not right-skilled and oriented toward the job they are approaching. There is a big gap arising due to inability of educational institute in mapping the skills according to what is actually demanded by the industry.

Lack of formative assessment to recognize gaps in students, very few and inefficient industry-recognized programs and long-term internships for skilled based leaning are some major hurdles in the path of educational institute to fill the skill or employability gap in students.

Inability in filling this skill gap leading the graduation of batch of students with inadequate soft skills like public speaking, writing proficiency, data analysis, etc and deficiency of hard skills like problem solving, communication, leadership, etc. is the major cause of not becoming employable.

Many institutions have extended their hands towards industries and also started entrepreneurship and incubation cells to provide holistic development of students right from values to idea generation, creativity, passion and urge to create something meaningful and relevant to the society. These candidates are also incubated and given intellectual, infrastructural and technological assistants to incubate their thoughts and bring them in reality.

This is possible which will not only increase employability but also sow the seed of entrepreneurship.

What does it really mean by ‘Atmanirbhar’?

This situation clearly depicts a black and white picture with the everlasting despair and no innovations. But as mentioned earlier, with increasingly exposed challenges, there exists light at the end of every dark tunnel; here the light is of Entrepreneurship lightening the path towards ‘Atmanirbharta’.

Entrepreneurship- A lifelong employment with passion and create a difference in society which is needed to be adopted and expanded in today’s scenario of unemployment. Entrepreneurship, in simple words is painting a thought with different colours on a black canvas!…Creation with passion and creativity backed up by incubation and funding to create new concepts, new products, new ideas for the world.

Being an entrepreneur i.e., being ‘Atmanirbhar’ will help in much diversified ways in order to cope up with the current joblessness. Entrepreneurship will not only raise the personal standard of living but also support nation’s economy in some or the other way. Not only this but there are so many beneficial underlying consequences come with it and most important is – it will thrive job opportunities!

Other adventitious impacts arising with it will be community development, equitable redistribution of wealth, income, political power in the interest of country, new advancements in research and development, and so on. The list will be never ending if compared to the current scenario of unemployment.

Three major skills for Entrepreneurship

Skills required to march towards entrepreneurship combine a range of technical, personal and management skills. There is no established, simple skillset as these skills evolve with the business you are choosing and your own moral values.

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has managed to put forth the three basic skills required for each entrepreneur such as-

Technical – communication, environment monitoring, problem solving, technology implementation and use, interpersonal, organisational skills.
Business management – planning and goal setting, decision making, human resources management, marketing, finance, accounting, customer relations, quality control, negotiation, business launch, growth management, compliance with regulations skills.
Personal entrepreneurial characteristics – self-control and discipline, innovation, persistence, leadership, change management, network building, and strategic thinking.

Knowing Indian entrepreneurial environment, each entrepreneur must also learn and possess risk mitigation strategies and abilities to take decision and balance risks.

Entrepreneurial opportunities

Opportunities in India and abroad are seen in the areas of healthcare, education, technology, communication, food nutrition, and new drug development. Any one of these areas depending on the strengths of the candidates and like-minded people with the support of incubation centres, this reality of creating new entrepreneurs in India and making them ‘Atmanirbhar’ is definitely a good dream coming to reality possible.

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