Role of Modern Skills in Increasing Income and Employment of Households in RuralAreas of Himachal Pradesh

摘要

In Himachal Pradesh, majority of population is living in rural areas having agriculture as their livelihood. Land holding is very small and scope of industrialization is low hence, there is a large scope of developing the economy through skill development in this state. In the rural areas, people are engaged in agriculture, handloom, tailoring and rural artisan works etc. An attempt has been made in this paper to study the role of modern skills in increasing income and employment level of householdsin rural areas of Himachal Pradesh. The study reveals that the highest annual income ranged between technical skill households (Rs. 1433820/hh), followed by goldsmith (Rs.1141354/ hh), to the lowest barber (Rs.203751/hh) among modern skilled households.The same trend has been observed in case of per capita annual income of skilled households, which ranged between Rs.50800 per capita among cobbler households to Rs.298712 per capita among technical skill households. However, among traditional skilled households, the goldsmith households earned relatively higher income of Rs.4,08,419 per household to the lowest income of Rs.70,700 among barber households. The per capita income was also higher on goldsmith households (Rs. 81684/capita) and lesser on barber households (Rs.l7675/capita). As far as per worker number of days worked is concerned, there were relatively higher on handloom households (184 days/worker) and lesser on goldsmith households( 98 days/ worker) among modern households. However, among traditional households, there were also more on handloom skill households (151 days/worker) and lesser on cobbler skill households (78 days/ worker).Government should facilitate access to training materials, toolkits, modern equipment and technology, and invest in teacher training, as well as better remuneration for teachers and trainers. Moreover, to provide some subsidies on latest modern machines as well as financial assistance to the poor traditional households are the policy issues for promotion of skill in Himachal Pradesh.