When a young person steps into a training centre, there is only one hope: that a few months of learning will translate into a lifetime of dignity. The aspiration is simple and universal. The idea is to master a skill, secure a job, support a family, and move one rung up the ladder of opportunity, gradually emerging from the poverty and inequality they have faced for years.

However, not every skilling programme has promised such a drastic change, except for the Skill India mission. When the mission was launched, the idea was to act as a bridge between candidates who aspire to have a career and the industry that struggles to get skilled manpower. The idea that it would be implemented at scale, from urban to semi-urban to rural areas, only strengthened its promise of a dignified and self-reliant life. However, this hope has only faded with time.

The news of 178 training partners being blacklisted under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) is the latest (but not the first) reminder of a deeper structural malaise. In fact, when the programme was launched, many had raised questions. It was a known fact that many training partners were not able to mobilise the required number of candidates. Many were given certificates without any training.

Ever since the establishment of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), numerous reports have highlighted its weaknesses. Established in 2008, the NSDC was viewed as catalytic in bridging the significant gaps in government financing, the skilling ecosystem, and industry requirements. The fact that the training would be delivered by experienced private-sector experts ensured that quality would be maintained.

However, several events, both on and off, have highlighted the need for a stricter monitoring system. For instance, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) highlighted issues related to opacity in fund disbursement, oversight of training partners, and the absence of robust mechanisms to verify training outcomes in its 2015 report.

There were significant governance lapses within the NSDC and its funding arm, the National Skill Development Fund (NSDF), which highlighted weak monitoring, inadequate due diligence of training partners, and a growing mismatch between funds released and outcomes achieved.

The alarm bells were loud enough even then. They were followed by journalistic investigations and sector analyses that showed the same patterns: rushed expansion, weak supervision and inflated claims of success. But the political momentum behind the Skill India mission meant that the race for scale overshadowed the need for systems.

In July 2015, the government launched the PMKVY with great fanfare, setting ambitious targets to skill one crore youth. Mass certification became central to the narrative, rather than building skilled manpower. In public rallies, press releases, and policy statements, the focus remained on the number of people enrolled and trained, rather than the number who had secured meaningful employment.

Over time, this emphasis on scale without accountability hardened into institutional behaviour. Training partners began to chase enrolment numbers as the system rewarded them. The result was predictable: ghost trainees, nonexistent centres, fake attendance logs, and training centres that barely met the minimum standards but continued to receive funding. The recent blacklisting is merely the most visible chapter in a long-drawn-out story of systemic failure.

What makes the current moment more unsettling is the way numerous stories of failures were pushed under the carpet. Between 2016 and 2020, PMKVY continued to expand exponentially. The annual reports boasted of lakhs of candidates being "placed," but independent analyses repeatedly highlighted that the actual number of sustainable jobs was a fraction of what was claimed. Many independent surveys and sector studies consistently found employability gaps and quality shortfalls. Be it mainstream media or several state-level audits, stories of inflated attendance, irrelevant courses, or substandard training were reported regularly.

Yet, the central government continued to revise the scheme instead of revamping it. PMKVY 2.0 was followed by PMKVY 3.0, and later the restructured "Skilling India Programme" was announced for 2022–26. Each iteration promised tighter monitoring and better placement linkages. But the core problems persisted. Mechanisms for monitoring improved on paper, but programme implementation continued to lag behind. The political narrative continued to emphasise numbers trained rather than the quality and authenticity of training. The NSDC, meanwhile, faced internal churn, including the removal of its officiating CEO in mid-2025 amid allegations of governance lapses, indicating that institutional stability had weakened.

The blacklisting of 178 training partners last week is, therefore, the cumulative outcome of years of misaligned incentives. States like Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, with dense populations and significant unemployment rates, have featured repeatedly in these controversies. The fact that fraudulent practices continued despite earlier warnings raises a fundamental question: why have effective corrective measures not been implemented over the past decade?

First, the funding model, tied to tranches released at various stages of training, creates opportunities for manipulation. Reports suggest that ghost trainees, fake Aadhaar entries, and duplicate attendance logs were used to access funds, flouting virtually every monitoring tool, including biometric attendance, geo-tagging, and digital tracking—something no one would have imagined.

Second, the apparatus with which the NSDC operates is itself faulty and cumbersome. The state skill missions, sector skill councils, district-level officers and training providers all operate within an overlapping yet loosely coordinated system, diffusing accountability and scattering responsibility. In the event of a failure, it becomes difficult to determine where the fault lies.

The training programmes too often prepare youth for roles that do not match regional demands. The courses have mostly been supply-driven rather than demand-driven. Industry participation has improved, but it is still far from the co-ownership required for actual employability. Youth, particularly in rural and peri-urban regions, are trained for sectors that may not exist in their local economies. Migration, wages, social norms and market saturation complicate the transition from training to employment. A certificate, however professionally printed, cannot substitute for real labour-market integration.

The personal consequences of these systemic failures are profound. For thousands of young people, especially first-time learners from low-income families, these schemes represented an opportunity to break free from generational stagnation. When a certificate fails to translate into a job, the loss is not merely financial. It damages confidence, corrodes trust in institutions and forces youth back to informal, vulnerable and low-paying work. The nation loses twice: once in the wasted expenditure and again in the wasted potential of its young workforce.

The broader economic implications are equally significant. India's aspiration to become a global manufacturing and innovation hub depends on a future-ready workforce. If the skilling ecosystem itself becomes synonymous with inflated numbers and weak outcomes, employers will increasingly bypass formal certification and rely on their own assessments, a trend already visible in sectors like logistics, retail and micro-manufacturing. This erodes the very purpose of a national skilling framework.

A decade of data points towards only one conclusion. The approach to skilling needs to shift fundamentally—from volume to value, from inputs to outcomes, from enrolment-driven to employment-verified disbursements, from opaque partnerships to transparent public accountability, and from supply-driven curricula to employer-led design.

Data should be validated by independent third-party audits to avoid revenue leakages. There is an immediate need for a unified national dashboard that provides publicly verifiable details of every training centre, real-time tracking of every candidate, and their placement and retention. The cumbersome structure through which the NSDC operates needs to be simplified, with a clear accountability loop in place.

India's demographic dividend cannot be sustained on paper promises. As the country moves deeper into an era of technological transformation with AI and automation sweeping almost every domain, the stakes are even higher. A skilling ecosystem that fails to deliver, wastes public funds and risks leaving our youth behind is not only undoing years of progress but also casting a shadow over the future of coming generations.

The latest blacklisting should not be treated as a one-time clean-up. It serves as a reminder that, despite its ambition, the system has not undergone a structural overhaul. The question is no longer whether a few centres have committed fraud. The critical question is whether the architecture itself enables corruption. Our youth deserve an ecosystem that recognises their aspirations, builds real capabilities and leads to dignified and sustainable work. Anything less is nothing but a neglect of duty.