Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee today urged the private sector to play a major role in bridging the skill gap as the government alone would not be able to meet the growing requirements. He said there was a challenging target of creating a skilled work force of 150 million persons by 2022. He said in New Delhi that the government has initiated action to achieve this target. Addressing a meeting of the National Skill Development council, NDSC, Mr. Mukherjee said, so far participation of private sector in skill creation has been more or less limited to IT sector. The Finance Minister expressed happiness at projects being taken up in Orissa and Manipur and hoped that this would help wean away youth from extremists or Naxalites.He asked NSDC to strive to develop new benchmarks and thresholds, in line with the international best practices.