NEW DELHI: The government is fasttracking the adoption of state-run industrial training institutes (ITIs) by corporate India and could let industry include financial aid to sector skill councils while calculating their statutory social responsibility spending uner the Companies Act.
While urging industry to be pro-active about training instead of lamenting the lack of adequate skills in the workforce, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Secretary Sunil Arora admitted that training facilities in the country were out of sync with the times.
“Industry is right that pass outs from industrial training institutes are not ready … the syllabus is inflexible, most equipment is over 10-15 years old. So why can’t industry train people since they know what skills they need on the assembly line,” asked Arora, speaking at a national summit on corporate social responsibility in the capital.
Promising to finish all “paperwork within one week” for firms looking to adopt ITIs, the official said: “We will do anything to make them living, vibrant institutions rather than dead techno-bureaucratic bodies.”
There are more than 10,000 government-run ITIs, about a quarter of which could be adopted by industry. Confederation of Indian Industry President and Tractors India Chairman Sumit Mazumder said skilling is a critical challenge for the government’s ‘Make in India’ drive. The CII, he said, had adopted such training institutes but faced a lot of resistance to change.
“Unfortunately, the youth that are coming out today are not employable. You spend three years retraining them, during which time they are just an expenditure,” Mazumder told ET.
“We have proposed that the government allow firms to include contributions to different sector skill councils in their statutory CSR expenditure, and are awaiting a decision on this,” said Arora, citing Germany’s example where the government spends 3 billion euros a year on skill development, while industry spends 24 billion euros.
Stressing that skilling is not just a part of this government’s political vision, but “a dire necessity for the economy and industry”, the skill development ministry official said efforts to train people need to be scaled up fast, or India’s demographic dividend could turn into a nightmare.
“Tractors India and many other companies are setting up their own training institutes,” said the CII chief. “We will make around 2,000-3,000 youth employable every year and have the first right of refusal on hiring them,” Mazumder said about his own firm’s game plan.
Source : Economic Times