The Hindu Business Line : `Training raw hands will help beat skilled workers' shortage'

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Chennai March 2 Tailors working in a car manufacturing plant; recruiters sifting through 14,000 applicants to identify 3,000 candidates who can be trained to make mobile handsets; raw hands who need to be taught the basics of factory routines... these are initial signs of scarcity of workers for the factories coming up in Tamil Nadu, according to plant managers. But no fear, they say in the same breath.

"Once you train the beginners, the workforce matches the best anywhere," they say. They are those overseeing production in factories in the industrial belt at Irrungattukottai and Sriperumbudur to the west of Chennai.

A mobile handset manufacturer points out that the quality of output in the new factory near Chennai has matched that of the best in China; another points out that the quality from their unit has exceeded expectations... no cause for complaints.

Skills Development

But there lies the crux of the issue — training. The concerns were discussed at a brainstorming session on skills development initiative organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, at Saint-Gobain Glass India Ltd. Senior level managers and service providers from nearly 20 units in the area participated.

What needs to be done to improve availability of qualified workers?

According to Mr B. Santhanam, Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Glass India Ltd, the State Government and the industry have recognised the need to provide an organised framework to train entry-level workers for the manufacturing units.

The Tamil Nadu Government has agreed to provide the funds, an estimated Rs 500 crore, and the infrastructure. It is up to the industry to propose an efficient system. The State Government has agreed to create a skill development fund to support the training, he said.

What better place to create and test such a model than Sriperumbudur, a village that has evolved in recent years as the State's centrepiece of industrial development?

Mr Santhanam, who also chairs CII's national committee on human resources and industrial relations, pointed out that Sriperumbudur is most vibrant for automobile, auto components, electronic products and process industries. Together the industries have invested over $3-4 billion and provided jobs to 25,000. If they could come up with a solution it could be replicated elsewhere.

Along with these, IT, financial services and traditional industries such as construction, textiles, leather and light engineering will account for over 65 per cent of the manpower requirement by 2015. Quoting an ICRA study, he said that would mean a demand of over 1.3-1.5 crore jobs, nearly a fourth of Tamil Nadu's population.

Training Needs

The human resource pool for the entry-level workers would be the workers displaced from agriculture and the school dropouts. They would constitute over two-thirds of the workforce. The formally educated and those with niche skills would form the balance, he said.

The Government and industry would have to work together to provide a solution to the training needs. Together they would have to address the basic skills training and the following industry-specific training. The participants would meet again in about two months with concrete suggestions.

More Stories on : Interview | Human Resources | Tamil Nadu

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