3 min readHyderabadMar 16, 2025 08:00 AM IST
First published on: Mar 16, 2025 at 08:00 AM IST
The full-fledged launch of Andhra Pradesh’s “skill census”, an exercise mooted by the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) amid calls for a caste survey in the state, has already been delayed by a month as it undergoes what government sources said was “fine-tuning”.
The exercise, which was scheduled to be launched on February 15, is the brainchild of state minister Nara Lokesh, son of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
“We are still fine-tuning the exercise to make the launch smooth,” a government source said, without giving details about what the fine-tuning entailed.
A source close to the TDP government said, “It’s not easy to quantify something as dynamic as skills. One’s skills keep changing within days or months. It is not clear whether the government has taken this into consideration.”
The skill census had been conducted on a pilot basis in five mandals last year, and some political observers believe the results of the pilot were not satisfactory, leaving the government to reconsider the exercise altogether.
According to sources, the preliminary findings had shown that just 12.7% of a sample of 2.46 lakh in the working-age population – aged between 15 and 59 – are “employed”. According to data from the pilot, of those employed, just 34.8% were women, The Indian Express has learnt.
The data also showed that 20.6% of those surveyed were “self-employed”. Of this, 66.4% were men.
In total, just 33.3% of those surveyed in the working age group were employed in either the organised or unorganised sectors.
Under the pilot exercise, the state collected samples from five mandals – Tadepalli, Duggirala, Mangalagiri Urban and Rural, and Thullur – of the Mangalagiri Assembly constituency.
Out of a total of 2.77 lakh residents of the constituency, 2.46 lakh were surveyed.
Of the 1.38 lakh unemployed people, according to the pilot exercise, 64% are women. Around 39.5% of the unemployed were actively seeking employment, and among them, 60% were women, the data showed. This pilot data showed that women’s participation in the workforce was low despite their attempts to get employed.
Incidentally, 68% of those who were surveyed said they need “skill training”. The top professions that job seekers were aiming for were tailor, computer operator, computer programmer, software engineer and administrative official, the data revealed.
TDP general secretary and son of party chief Chandrababu Naidu, Nara Lokesh. (X/@naralokesh) 
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