India is a young country. According to a UN report 2014, world’s largest youth population with 356 million (10 years to 24 years old) is in India. The 2011 census shows that around 41% of population of India is below the age of 20 years, 50% of population is in the 20-59 age groups and remaining 9 % is above the age of 60. While at the same time, only 32 % of the country’s youth (15-24 years) population is employed yet (World Development Indicator, World Bank Data 2014), which is also far below than the 41% global average. On the other hand, According to NSSO (National Sample Survey Organization) figures at every level of education, the unemployment rate is higher among the 15 year to 29 year old age groups as compared to the broader population as a whole. The annual population growth rate of India is 1.2% (World Bank data, 2015) and a report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released in April 2016 showed that India will face a serious challenge of finding jobs for a growing population over the next 35 years.
As a young person of this nation, I am also wondering if there any possible sustainable solution for such a problem. If we see the major causes of unemployment we will find the lack of employment opportunities, skill crisis, high growth of population, slow growth of industrialization, seasonality of agricultural and allied sectors at the top. The rate of unemployment has grown faster for people with little or no education than than for those with some education. The Government has been unable to provide enough job opportunities to all the unemployed and at the same time the unemployed youth population has been increasing day by day. At all levels, unemployment rates are higher in rural than urban areas and the rate of female unemployment exceeded the rate of male unemployment.
In such scenario, I strongly feel the need for entrepreneurship in our country. India needs job makers instead of job seekers. Instead of looking for jobs youth can try to find new opportunities where they can start their own enterprises with their new ideas. It can be a probable solution for our unemployment problem by creating employment for ones own self and others. An entrepreneur is a person who collaborates all resources, takes the initiative to start something new, takes risks, provides employment to many and fills the gaps (provides solution for people’s problems in the form of goods or services) to make lives easier.
If we see the large picture then we find that entrepreneurs can help a country in many ways. It helps a country to reduce its unemployment rate, to become financially and technologically self sufficient, to raise the standard of living of citizens and to reduce the regional imbalances. One single entrepreneurial unit, impacts so many lives and agencies directly or indirectly:-
In short, an entrepreneur helps a country in its overall economic development. In such a situation promotion of entrepreneurship is very much needed in the country like India. Again, as India’s a greater part of population is young, it has potential for demographic dividend, which occurs when the proportion of working people in the entire population is more than the rest. It signifies that more citizens have the potential to work, be productive and contribute for the county’s economic development. If more young people choose to become entrepreneurs, then the problem of unemployment can be reduced to a large extent.
I was also thinking that it is not very easy to become an entrepreneur as it requires emotional as well as financial supports, but after joining Dhriiti I realized that it is not very difficult also. There are many Govt. institutions which help entrepreneurs and there are many Non Profits also which provide incubation supports to aspirant and established entrepreneurs to set up there own ventures. I will surely write about those programmes in my next blog.
“Thinking is the capital, Enterprise is the way and Hard work is the solution”___ APJ Abdul Kalam.
Sources:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.ZS