The Hindu Business Line : President moots global human resource cadre

THE PRESIDENT, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, with the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, at the 77th convocation of the Osmania University in Hyderabad on Thursday. - Mohammed Yousuf

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Hyderabad Feb. 1 The President, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, today advocated a twin-track cadre to harness the power of the country's large human resource base. While one relates to a global cadre of youth with specific knowledge and skill sets, the other would play a role in the manufacturing and services sectors.

Speaking at the 77th convocation of the Osmania University here today, Mr Kalam said that the need to build global human resource cadre is essential for transforming India into a knowledge society. No Indian youth should be without higher education or world-class skills, he said.

Universities contribute about 3 million graduates and the number of students seeking employment after 10+2 is about 7 million. While 10 million people get inducted into employment every year, India with about 540 million people below 25 years of age needs to build a cadre of trained work force.

He said that the country's education system needed to step up output from the exiting 11 per cent to 20 per cent by 2015, 30 per cent by 2020 and 50 per cent by 2040. After administering an oath of commitment to students, Mr Kalam spoke on energy independence and research initiatives that would help harness the power of natural resources.

Based on current projections, the President said, the country's power generation capacity has to increase to 4,00,000 MW by 2030 from 1,30,000 MW now. While coal would continue to play a significant role, this called for zero emission fuel plants, and the hydel capacity needs to go up to 80,000 MW, solar energy (55,000 MW), wind energy (64,000 MW), nuclear power (50,000 MW) and about 15,000 MW from solid biomass and municipal waste.

Mr Kalam said that the country was at present importing around 100 million tonnes of crude oil with a bill of about $34 billion. One way to address this issue is to step up ethanol-blended fuels and bring down costs.

NUCLEAR REACTORS

On the ongoing nuclear research efforts, the President said that from a 3,900 MW capacity from 16 nuclear reactors, it would go up to 7,400 MW by 2010 with the addition of nine more reactors.

"However, by 2020, this is projected to grow to about 24,000 MW and we need to plan right from now to increase nuclear capacity to 50,000 MW by 2030. One of the focus areas has been to use thorium-based reactors to meet the increasing demand for fuel from nuclear reactors," he said.

To popularise wind energy, the President suggested that the cost of generation has to be brought down from Rs 2.50-3.50 per unit to Rs 1-2 per unit.

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