Rajasthan labour reforms lodestone for firms to skill workers

Almost a year after Rajasthan took the lead in ushering labour reforms, companies are rushing to the state to skill workers in large numbers - a move seen as a precursor to huge investment that might follow.

The state has witnessed a four-fold increase in the number of companies imparting skills to the youth. At present, 120 companies are actively running 250 short-term skill development centres to skill the youth, as against 30 companies running close to 50 centres in January 2014.

These centres impart skills through a three-month duration programme, providing both institutional and on-the-job training to the youth.

Besides, Rajasthan has 800 private industrial training institutes (ITIs) - most of them, around 646, came up in the last one year, with a capacity to train more than 100,000 workers. The state government has set an objective of training 150,000 youth this year, and this target is set to go up each year as more companies set up their skill development centres.

"The confidence shown by the training providers is an indicator of the positive sentiments of the investors regarding new projects and scaling investment in the state after we ushered in steps towards ease of doing business and introduced a slew of labour reforms," feels state Labour Commissioner Rajat Kumar Mishra.

In November, Rajasthan led the way in bringing amendments to the labour laws considered crucial by the industry players. Those were related to easing retrenchment norms, hiring more contract workers, toughening trade union formation, among others. This was followed up by the Centre and state governments of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra among others.

"But changes to the labour laws could only address the demand side of the problems; the supply side is being fixed by providing skill development so that a capable labour force is created," said Gaurav Goyal, managing director, Rajasthan Skill and Livelihood Development Corporation.

Dealers of many automobile companies such as Maruti, Toyota Motors, Honda, Mahindra, TVS, Hero are among some of the training partners, Goyal said. Others include Jindal Hospital, Raymond, Sutlej Textiles, Bombay Stock Exchange, etc.

Companies such as Cairn India Limited and Samsung have partnered with the state government to set up advanced labs in government ITIs and run industry-specific skill programmes.

"Earlier, there was a major disconnect between the employed youth, training partners and employers. We are now encouraging industries to start imparting training according to job requirements, which include on-the-job training for factories, hotels, hospitals and warehouses," Goyal added.

The number of workers skilled has almost doubled in the past year. Around 74,000 youth were provided skills in 250 skill development centres, compared to 38,000-40,000 people trained in a year on an average in the past. The number of private training centres is set to double by the end of this financial year.

"Earlier, it was difficult to find skill training partners in the state. However, since the government has implemented labour law changes, things have improved drastically, and the response has been positive," Mishra said.