India needs to impartskills to 10 million people every year to reap the benifit of globalisation: Oscar Fernandes at CII Skill Development

India needs to impart relevant skill to 10 million people every year to reap the benefit of globalization, Oscar Fernandes, Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment, said at CII International Conclave on Skills Development with the theme Building People Building India on December 12, in Delhi.

Said Mr Fernandes, Our population is not a problem, but an asset. We should provide our workforce world-class training and skill to excel in the new world order.

Highlighting the government initiative, Mr Fernandes said To achieve this objective, one of the steps taken is to upgrade 500 ITIs into the Centres of Excellence, for producing multi-skilled workforce of world standard. The government is opening new industrial training institutes (ITIs), vocational schools and skill development centres.

In order to address this challenge, Mr Fernandes drew attention towards the Prime Minister address to the Nation on Independence Day this year where he announced to set up 1500 more ITIs, 100 more polytechnics, 10,000 more vocational education schools and 50,000 ICT based Skill Development Centres in order to train about 10 million additional persons every year. We are required to do four times more in next five years than what we accomplished in the last 50 years, Mr Fernandes said.

Calling the issue of skill development on the top of government agenda Mr Fernandes said, Skill development is high on governance agenda and state governments should work closely with industry in this direction, Fernandes said, adding that around 12.8 million people join labour force every year, but India has infrastructure to train only 2.5 million people. He said there should be effective public-private partnership to bridge this gap.

But this task cannot be accomplished by the Government alone and in his address Minster invited industry to join hands with the Government to set up institutions, either by industry themselves or in public private partnership mode. Mr Fernandes said, Industry should come forward to be equal partner in the initiative. Industry indulgence is possible in two ways: First, to improve the quality of training of existing institutions so that the graduates from these institutions fulfill the needs of the industry. The second aspect is the quantity.

CII has been playing an active part in skill development arena. In Oct 2004, CII had launched a nation-wide Skills Development Initiative in India to provide internationally benchmarked skills to the current and potential Indian work force. This is with a view to train large numbers of people across sectors, in various skills, to meet national requirements for skilled workers.
Indias leading management portal MBAUniverse.com is the official media partner of the CII Summit.