Skill India to Scale India Mission

From Skill Competency to Global strategic Scale

The national mandate for mass skill development, known today as the Skill India Mission, finds its definitive origin in the visionary work of the late Professor C.K. Prahalad. In September 2007, at the India@60 event, Prahalad articulated the India@75 vision, defining the strategic imperative: India must create 500 million globally employable, skilled technicians by 2022 to claim global leadership.

This figure was more than a target; it was the foundational strategic intent for the entire national response. It catalyzed the formulation of the National Skill Development Policy (2009) and the establishment of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), making Prahalad the intellectual force behind the official lineage.

Prahalad’s foresight recognized that skill development is the essential input mechanism necessary for achieving competitive scale—the output objective. By upgrading the workforce to global standards, the vision directly improves productivity across all sectors, enhancing national production and boosting GDP. The ultimate goal is to translate this scaled domestic competency into a decisive advantage in international trade, increasing the volume and sophistication of exports. The pursuit of the Skill India mandate is, fundamentally, the pursuit of Prahalad's economic Scale, ensuring human capital directly translates into sustained national prosperity and global competitiveness.

Perpetuating the Systemic Vision: From Competency to Competitive Advantage

To ensure the realization of this Neo framework for national growth, the C.K. Prahalad Foundation actively contributes through rigorous Strategic Management Research and Systemic Ideation. Our current focus centers on solving the complex, next-generation challenges of the Scale India mandate: developing advanced models for Institutional Capacity Building across the skill ecosystem; architecting Next-Practice Leadership Frameworks designed for hyper-scale execution; and researching methodologies for optimizing Digital Value Chain Integration and Last-Mile Delivery effectiveness. By providing empirical, cutting-edge strategic insights, the Foundation aids in the systemic translation of national skilling competency into a decisive, sustainable Global Competitive Advantage, thereby ensuring Professor Prahalad's commitment to inclusive wealth creation is continually realized.