The Hindu Business Line : Skill development tops CII agenda, says Kamath

Tackling wage inflation: The CII President, Mr K.V. Kamath, with the Director-General of CII, Mr Chandrajit Banerjee ,addressing a press conference, in the Capital on Thursday.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, May 1 The newly-elected President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank, Mr K.V. Kamath, said that the chamber would address India Inc’s problem of wage inflation by taking up skill development initiative this year. Acknowledging that the industry was grappling with 10-15 per cent wage inflation which was not sustainable, Mr Kamath said, “If India has to maintain its competitiveness, we cannot have a wage inflation of 12-15 per cent. We have not created enough pool of labour in the market. This year, we are taking up a national level skill development programme which would look into the issues of building a skilled manpower for the industry.”

Action plan

By next week, CII plans to formulate an All-India Action Plan consisting of different strategies across sectors.

“The Action Plan would decide strategies to reach out to the people up to the district level and how we can upscale the project to meet the industry requirements for different sectors,” said Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII.

He said that the skill development initiative would be aimed at diverse sections such as masons, carpenters and millers. “With the real estate boom, there is a strong demand for masons. So, we will see how we can train such people in the unorganised sector to meet the industry demands in the area of retail, food processing, construction, amongst others,” added Mr Banerjee.

Apart from this, CII would also launch green rating of houses in collaboration with international agency Leeds. On similar lines to promote environment-friendly technology and material, it would also launch a green procurement policy to promote purchasing of such materials among the corporates.

GDP & Inflation

Meanwhile, on his outlook for the macro economic scenario, he said CII has projected an 8.3 per cent to 8.6 per cent GDP growth for 2008-09. “Despite global slowdown and strong challenges in the domestic economy, there is enough momentum and fundamental macro-economic strength in the Indian economy to give us a good year. CII is optimistic about the near-term economic future of the country and feels that an aspirational 10 per cent growth rate of GDP is possible in the medium term,” he said.

Expressing concern over inflation, he said that it was the biggest challenge facing the country. “Inflation needs to be dealt with by the government, however, the government would have the support of industry and CII in this effort will work with its membership to try and ensure that manufacturing WPI comes down to below 5.5 per cent.”

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