Union minister of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship Mahendra Nath Pandey on Thursday said that "Skill India is a concept that has been making a footprint both in and outside India".

"All our ecosystem of education and skill departments in every state and districts came together to contribute with their innovative ideas during the last 7 months during the COVID-19 pandemic," he said.

He was speaking on the 115th annual session of PHD Chamber on behalf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Speaking further the minister opined for skilling, re-skilling and up-skilling, skill training centres, industry connect skilling and industry demand skilling are important for achieving the vision of a USD 5 trillion economy and making India self-reliant, going forward.

During his speech, the minister mentioned the importance of Aatmanirbhar Skilled Employee Employer Mapping (ASEEM).

ASEEM is a database to bridge the gap of demand and supply of skilled workforce across the sectors.

"With a vision to make India the skill capital of the world, our ministry has worked towards making over 5 crore people skilled in the country since 2014-15," the minister further said.

"The ministry has also signed several MOUs on skill development with different countries, apart from working towards the recognition of Indian skilled youth in the world," he added.

The minister was affirmative that PHD Chamber could play a significant role in supporting the ministry and the government has a whole in achieving its Skilled India mission and overall vision of high economic trajectory and self- reliant India, going forward.

Speaking on the occasion PHD Chamber' senior vice president Sanjay Aggarwal said that the education and skill development holds a crucial place for supporting India in its journey towards being Atmanirbhar.

"At this juncture, the focus of the Centre and the states should be to work together to increase the public investment in education sector to at least reach 6 per cent of GDP at the earliest," he said.

"Compared to other developed and developing countries, India has a unique window of opportunity for another 20-25 years, which is called as the demographic advantage," he added.

"This opportunity must be strategically perceived to achieve the Vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat," he further said.

Emphasising on the importance of digitalisation, he said, "Digitalisation will play a big role in reshaping education, access to skill development, imparting knowledge on technological advancements, among others, in the coming years."