About 50 crore people need to be skilled in the next few years and for that there is a need of lakhs of trainers, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Secretary Ravi Mital said in Friday.

He said that role of trainers is key in promoting skills. "About 50 crore people needs to be skilled in next few years and if we have to take India to the next level, skilling our people is absolutely essential and in this regard the role of our trainers becomes more important. We have to create an army of hundreds and thousands and lakhs of trainers because they will be needed to train 50 crore people," he said.

He was speaking during announcement of Kaushalacharya Awards 2021, honouring skill trainers. Speaking at the occassion, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Dharmendra Pradhan called for focusing on standardisation of trainers and finding of demands in both domestic and world markets for skilled people. In schools, there are 26 crore seats, and 10 crore teachers, "so if we have to train 50 crore, imagine how many trainers and master trainers we need," he said.

Training should be in local language and trainers should explain things in mother tongue to student to enhance the scope of skilling, he suggested.