Crisis situations emerge unawares in daily life exposing our unpreparedness for salvaging the property or materials suffering damage and destruction. Succumbing to a feeling of shock and helplessness, solely because of lacking in ability to overcome the crisis, only increases the sense of misery. Examples of householders throwing up their hands on such occasions come in a long list. One cannot miss the anguish knocking down the home-maker at the break of dawn when the domestic help plays truant even after a seemingly long wait of a few minutes from her ETA (Expected Time of Arrival), what with the kitchenware lying unwashed, floors remaining unswept, clothes heading for laundry and so on. Next comes the gas stove that plays spoil-sport by not lighting up. Either the tap going dry or refusing to leak non-stop makes a demand on the head of the family to be smart enough and redeem himself from embarrassment, as he hunts for a plumber. Door-lock, telephone, television, geyser in the bathroom, the family’s automobile and kitchen machine take their turn in testing the skills, or more often lack of skill, of the householders as they give the slip.

Thanks to the total dependence of urbanites in particular on all sorts of devices in daily use, gifted by their unknown inventors, living is marked by comfort, not to forget laziness, that the rustics have not yet emulated the urbanites, thus not hit by crisis situations mentioned above.

Commonly happening aberrations in daily life on the home front may have exposed the level and extent of unpreparedness to restore order among the householders and such happenings in public domain are different kettles of fish. Intra-city roads and underground drainage network breaking down, street-lights conking out, drinking water lines developing hefty leaks, full grown trees falling across stretches disrupting movement of vehicles and pedestrians have exposed the extent of apathy on the part of civic administration to provide amenities to the citizen. To cut a long story short, the factor of skill, in its widest meaning, plays a stellar role in both preventing crisis and salvaging the lost property, particularly infrastructure which is already in a state of disrepair all over the land.

In the foregoing backdrop, the initiative of the Union Government to develop skills for the youth under the India Skill Development Service, introduced in 2016, triggers hope that all be well again in the land. That apart, the workforce in various trades mentioned earlier, providing timely service to householders facing crisis, still remain unsung, unhonoured, unrecognised and unthanked by society. The Kannada idiom Sankata Bandaaga Venkata Ramana says it all.