The paper is based on a qualitative study of 66 skilled workers comprising drivers, tailors, electricians and also murtikars, a traditional craft group. All of them had taken informal training through family, apprenticeship or self-learning. The paper reflects on access, quality and relevance issues arising from such training. The findings reveal that there is sometimes an overlapping of boundaries between a skill group and a caste group especially with regards to traditional skills. However such boundaries are not impenetrable. The informal training process can be long and unpaid and these pose considerable opportunities cost for the trainees. The finding also suggests that learning one skill alone is often insufficient to support a family livelihood, families sometimes resolve to the diversification of skills or jobs to make a decent income. The study is part of the RECOUP research into improving outcomes of education and skills training for disadvantaged groups "(http://recoup.educ.cam.ac.uk; http://www.cordindia.com)". (Contains 29 footnotes and 3 tables.)