Estimates from a 2025 study suggest that a 12-percentage-point increase in skilled workforce through investment in formal skilling could lead to more than a 13% increase in employment in the labour-intensive sectors by 2030.
“This highlights the need to expand the coverage of skill training programmes while ensuring quality and alignment with market demands,” the survey stated.
It also called for a unified apprenticeship mission, bringing all existing schemes such as the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) and the National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) under a single framework.
About 4.35 million apprentices have been engaged under PM-NAPS across 36 states/UTs, with participation from more than 51,000 establishments, and female participation reaching 20%. The NATS programme had 523,000 apprentices in FY25. “Despite this momentum, certain systemic challenges continue to hinder the full potential of the apprenticeship framework,” the survey said.
Under NAPS, over 6,100 enterprises are actively engaged in apprenticeship training, with over 990,000 apprentices enrolled in FY26.
“Given that India has over 63 million MSMEs up to large enterprises, even at two apprentices per company, that should ideally yield 120 million personnel,” said Lohit Bhatia, chief executive of Quess Corp, a staffing and recruitment services firm. “With simpler and easier registration and a common tech platform, it will be smoother for organisations to benefit from the same,” he said.”At the same time, inflation and cost of hiring are constantly increasing, and enhancing direct benefit transfers could attract more youth towards apprenticeship programs embedded into companies,” Bhatia added.
The convergence of policy reforms, institutional coordination, and industry engagement will position apprenticeships as a strategic lever for generating sustainable employment, the survey said.
“Through strengthened schemes such as NAPS and NATS, the government is promoting industry-linked training, digital integration via the Skill India Digital Hub, and wider participation of MSMEs to build a future-ready, job-aligned talent pipeline,” said Puneet Gupta, partner at EY India.
Making skilling work in India requires aligning institutional incentives, employer partnerships, course portfolios, placement services and integrity mechanisms around the lived outcomes of trainees, the survey observed.
“If this alignment is achieved, the attractiveness and dignity of skills-based pathways, whether labelled diplomas or degrees, will follow from their demonstrated value in the labour market rather than from optics alone,” it stated.