By Madhusudan Sahoo

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New Delhi: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday urged India Inc to shed its hesitation and step up investments, stressing that the government had delivered on ease of doing business and was working to plug skill gaps in line with India’s vision of Viksit Bharat. Emphasising the engagement between the government and industry, she also highlighted that India’s biggest contributor to the GDP is from the MSME sector, which are spread all over the country and both of them should be ‘ongoing through the year and not just before the budget’.The finance minister, however, listed out three key demands from industry — increase investments and manufacturing capacity, address human resource gaps, and partner with the government on skilling initiatives. “We have an advantage of demographic dividend, but we have to provide them with the right skills and the government is upgrading ITIs across 750 districts and setting up hubs for artificial intelligence (AI) training,” she said at the Indian Foundation for Quality Management (IFQM) symposium here.The Union Budget, she said, had proposed that AI-driven skills be offered to youngsters to prepare them for high-tech roles. “One of the biggest grievances of industry was the gap between qualifications and job readiness. You recruit someone whom you think is qualified but then you spend 6-8 months to actually prepare them for the job. We need not do that,” she said, adding that there is a need for deeper collaboration between government, private sector, and MSMEs to ensure youth are trained for direct employment.The finance minister also called for a seasoned approach to quality management, identifying the levels and sectors within manufacturing and services where interventions are most needed. She said the government has been steadily moving and with necessary seriousness, as per the expectation of the industry, citing several government initiatives for promoting ease of doing business. “With the experienced input of industry leaders, these interventions can serve as a powerful catalyst to enhance production in India and improve the quality of services across the country,” she said.Responding to the finance minister’s call to the industry to make investments, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran, however, acknowledged that the opportunity and the platform that the government has given are enormous, both in the domestic market and in the export market. “I firmly believe that more entrepreneurs, more small and medium companies and big corporates would make a lot of investments. I’m very confident, because without that investment, we will not be able to capture the opportunity,” he noted.