Shri S. Ramadorai has been appointed as Advisor to the Prime Minister in the Prime Minister's National Skill Development Council in the rank of Cabinet Minister.

Shri Ramadorai, currently Vice Chairman, TCS has been its former CEO and Managing Director for the last 15 years. During the period he was instrumental in building TCS into a 6 billion dollar global software and services company with 144,000 highly trained and qualified professionals. TCS has an outreach to 42 countries, a very strong India presence and an enviable client list which included six of the top ten Fortune companies. He continues to be on the Board of several Tata and non Tata companies.

He has been handpicked by the Prime Minister to advise the National Council on Skill Development. The Prime Minister's National Skill Development Council has been operating as a three-tier structure with the apex council being chaired by the Prime Minister, a coordination unit chaired by the Dy. Chairman, Planning Commission and a National Skill Development Corporation located in Ministry of Finance specifically focusing on supporting the private sector.

Investment in skills is critical for benefiting from the demographic dividend of India. It is already one of the youngest nations in the world with a majority of people below the age 30. Some observers like the late Shri C.K. Prahlad had projected that it should be possible for India to be able to create a fourth of the global workforce.

The terms of reference of the Advisor to the Prime Minister would be to advise the Prime Minister and supervise the following areas:

· Develop a strategy for skill development at the National level along with variations at the state level.

· Map the gaps in the area of skill development and develop strategies to address the skill deficit.

· Identify new areas for employability and promote skill development in such sectors.

· Advice on remodeling of existing skill development programmes run by various ministries.

· Promote greater use of Information Communications Technology in the area of skill development.

· Develop and implement an action plan for skill development to maximize job generation within the country and create human resources for global needs.

· Provide guidance through the National Council for activities to be undertaken by the Centre and the States and the National Skill Development Corporation.

The Planning Commission will be the nodal agency for providing administrative, logistic, planning and budgeting support to the office of Adviser to the Prime Minister as well as for handling Parliament-related responses.