MAINS Current Affairs includes Reimagining Skilling for Viksit Bharat: NITI Aayog & India Calls for Community-Led Restoration of Rangelands at UNCCD CoP17

Education/Economy

1. Reimagining Skilling for Viksit Bharat: NITI Aayog

Context: NITI Aayog’s report “Reimagining Skilling for Viksit Bharat” has brought renewed attention to the problem of educated unemployment and the need to better align India’s education and skilling systems with labour-market requirements.

Key Findings of “Reimagining Skilling for Viksit Bharat”

• Severe Skill–Job Mismatch: Only around 25% of graduates are employed in jobs matching their educational qualifications, pointing towards widespread qualification mismatch and underemployment.
• High Educated Unemployment: Unemployment stands at:
  • 13% among graduates; and
  • 4% among graduate women.
  • This is significantly higher than the overall unemployment rate of 2%.
• Over-reliance on Generic Degrees: More than 2 crore out of 3.4 crore undergraduate students are enrolled in A., B.Sc. and B.Com. programmes, which often have limited direct links with employment opportunities.
• Large Youth Disengagement: A considerable number of young people fall under the NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training)
  • However, NITI Aayog has clarified that NEET status should not be equated with unemployment, as the two concepts measure different conditions.
• Skilling Improves Earnings: Additional skills can significantly improve earning potential.
  • A skilled generic graduate earns an average starting salary of around ₹29,000 per month, compared with ₹22,000 for a graduate without additional skilling.
  • This represents an average monthly difference of approximately ₹7,000.
• Social Stigma Against Vocational Education: ITIs, diploma programmes and technical courses are often viewed as inferior alternatives to conventional university degrees, discouraging young people from choosing vocational careers.
• Information and Awareness Gaps: Limited awareness about suitable courses, apprenticeships, scholarships and government programmes prevents many youth from benefiting from available skilling opportunities.
• Weak Outcome Orientation: Many existing programmes focus more on enrolment and certification than on:
  • Placement;
  • Income enhancement; and
  • Long-term career progression.

Structural Barriers to Effective Skilling

1. Information and Gender Gaps

• Many learners lack reliable information regarding:
  • Appropriate courses;
  • Career pathways; and
  • Expected economic returns from different skills.
• Women face additional barriers related to:
  • Mobility;
  • Safety;
  • Social restrictions; and
  • Time constraints.

2. Supply-Driven Architecture

• A one-size-fits-all approach often fails to account for differences in regional and sectoral labour demand.
• Limited participation of industry weakens the ability of skilling programmes to respond to actual market requirements.

Why Does Skilling Matter?

• Skilling can improve both employment prospects and income mobility.
• According to evidence cited by NITI Aayog:
  • Generic graduate with additional skills → ₹29,000 average starting salary/month
  • Generic graduate without additional skills → ₹22,000 average starting salary/month
• Beyond employment, skilling can promote:
  • Entrepreneurship;
  • Income mobility;
  • Workforce adaptability; and
  • Resilience to technological disruption and the green transition.

Way Forward

• India needs to shift towards demand-driven, industry-backed and outcome-oriented skilling.
• Reorient Generic Degree Programmes: Transform B.A., B.Sc. and B.Com. programmes through applied and industry-relevant specialisations.
• Expand Apprenticeships: Scale up Apprenticeship Embedded Degree Programmes and other forms of work-integrated learning.
• Prepare for Emerging Sectors: Develop specialised skills for high-growth areas such as:
  • Green industries;
  • Electric vehicles; and
  • Other technology-intensive sectors.
• Strengthen Vocational Institutions: Promote PPP-based skilling universities and provide greater academic and administrative autonomy to ITIs.
• Integrate Foundational Skills: Embed digital literacy, financial literacy and workplace-readiness skills into mainstream education.
• Improve Career Guidance: Expand career counselling and provide targeted support to women and disadvantaged youth.

Conclusion

• India’s skilling challenge is not merely about producing a larger number of certified workers; it is about creating job-ready, adaptable and employable human capital.
• The persistence of educated unemployment and skill–job mismatch highlights the need to connect education → skills → apprenticeships → employment → income progression.
• A shift towards industry-linked, demand-driven and outcome-based skilling will be crucial for converting India’s demographic potential into a productive workforce and advancing the goal of Viksit Bharat.

Environment

2. India Calls for Community-Led Restoration of Rangelands at UNCCD CoP17

Context: India has advocated a community-led approach to restoring rangelands at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

About UNCCD COP17

• The 17th UNCCD COP is being held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, under the theme “Restoring Land, Restoring Hope.”
• Major areas of discussion include:
  • Setting national targets for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN);
  • Restoring degraded rangelands and dryland ecosystems;
  • Expanding green-finance mechanisms; and
  • Improving cross-border data sharing for drought forecasting.

Rangelands: Ecological and Economic Assets

• Rangelands cover around 54% of the Earth’s land surface and support nearly 500 million pastoralists.
• They include:
  • Grasslands;
  • Savannas;
  • Shrublands; and
  • Open woodlands.
• Rangelands provide important ecological and economic services, including:
  • Food and livelihoods;
  • Biodiversity conservation;
  • Carbon storage; and
  • Water regulation.
• They generate an estimated $21–47 trillion in annual benefits but continue to receive relatively limited attention in land and climate finance.
• Rangeland restoration can generate approximately $4–6 for every dollar invested, rising to nearly $36 when wider public benefits such as improved water supply are considered.

Rethinking the Role of Pastoralism

• Conventional approaches have often viewed pastoralism and livestock grazing as major causes of land degradation.
• However, many rangeland ecosystems have evolved alongside grazing, and well-managed pastoralism can contribute to:
  • Biodiversity conservation;
  • Nutrient cycling; and
  • Ecosystem resilience.
• Increasing degradation is also driven by:
  • Drought;
  • Expansion of cropland;
  • Urbanisation; and
  • Fragmentation of traditional grazing routes.
• Therefore, pastoral communities should be viewed as partners in ecosystem restoration rather than merely contributors to degradation.

Financing Gap in Land Restoration

• Land degradation affects up to 40% of the world’s land surface, posing risks to:
  • Food security;
  • Water availability;
  • Biodiversity; and
  • Rural livelihoods.
• Restoration requires large and sustained investments, as degraded land affects multiple sectors simultaneously.
• Despite its importance, land restoration has historically received less financial attention than several other climate and development priorities.
• At COP17, closing this financing gap—particularly for rangelands and pastoral communities—has emerged as an important concern.

Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)

• Land Degradation Neutrality seeks to ensure that the quantity and quality of land resources required for ecosystem functioning and food security remain stable or improve.
• Achieving LDN requires three broad approaches:
  • Avoid: Prevent further degradation of land.
  • Reduce: Minimise ongoing degradation.
  • Restore: Rehabilitate land that has already been degraded.
• Greater emphasis should be placed on preventing degradation, as prevention is generally less costly than restoring severely degraded land.

Challenges

1. Financing Gap

• Public and private investment in land restoration remains inadequate compared with the scale of global land degradation.

2. Policy Gap

• Rangelands often receive less attention in national climate and restoration strategies compared with forests.

3. Knowledge Gap

• Traditional ecological knowledge of pastoral communities is not adequately incorporated into formal restoration programmes.

4. Institutional Fragmentation

• Policies relating to land, water, agriculture, livestock, environment and disaster management are frequently implemented separately.
• This limits coordinated and landscape-level restoration.

Way Ahead

• Bridge the Financing Gap: Expand public funding and leverage blended finance, green bonds and innovative financial instruments to attract private investment into restoration and drought resilience.
• Prioritise Prevention: Invest in early-warning systems, drought forecasting and anticipatory action because preventing degradation is generally more cost-effective than post-disaster relief and large-scale restoration.
• Mainstream Rangelands in Climate Policies: Integrate rangelands and pastoralist systems more explicitly into:
  • Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs);
  • Land-restoration targets; and
  • Climate-finance frameworks.
• Strengthen Community Participation: Recognise pastoral communities as custodians and knowledge-holders and involve them in planning, implementation and monitoring of restoration initiatives.
• Integrate Traditional and Scientific Knowledge: Combine indigenous ecological practices with modern climate, satellite and ecosystem-monitoring technologies.

Conclusion

• Rangelands are simultaneously ecological assets, economic resources and livelihood systems for millions of people.
• Their restoration cannot succeed through purely top-down conservation approaches.
• A community-led, prevention-oriented and adequately financed strategy can protect biodiversity, strengthen pastoral livelihoods and improve resilience to drought and climate change.
• India’s emphasis at UNCCD COP17 therefore reinforces the principle that restoring land must go hand in hand with empowering the communities that depend upon it.

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