The Hindu Business Line : Minister urges States to help Centre in skill development

New Delhi, Oct. 5 Mr Oscar Fernandes, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, has urged State Governments to join hands with the Centre for skill development and employment generation activities by providing matching resources, posting effective officers and working with the industry to meet the training needs of 10 million people who join the workforce annually.

While speaking at a conference organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry with the support of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr Fernandes said, “About 12.8 million persons join the labour force every year and our training capacity is limited to 2.5 million a year, leaving a huge gap of 10 million persons per annum.”

‘Challenging task’

Even with the Government’s resolve to set up 1,500 more ITIs, 100 new polytechnics, 10,000 more vocational educational schools and 50,000 ICT-based skill development centres, “The task of training 10 million additional persons per year is challenging. We are required to do four times more in the next five years than what we accomplished in the last 50 years,” he said.

Mr Fernandes invited the industry to join hands with the Centre and States for improving the quality of the existing institutions so that the graduates from these institutions fulfil the needs of the industry.

The Minister said, the world, including China, is expected to face a deficit of 46 million workforce by 2020. India, he said, would be the only country, which will have a surplus manpower of 47 million.

“There is a golden opportunity to skill our labour force for meeting the domestic requirements as well as export skilled manpower to the rest of the world. We cannot let this opportunity slip by,” Mr Fernandes said.

Industry status

Mr Onkar S. Kanwar, Past President, FICCI and CMD, Apollo Tyres Ltd, urged the Government to grant ‘industry status’ to skill development and formulate a business model on adoption of ITIs to allow industry to participate effectively.

This, he said, may include freedom to regulate admission and fee structure, and giving incentives for setting up vocational training centres in rural India, and tax holidays.

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