Demand for aviation professionals rising: Raju

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathy Raju said today the demand for skilled aviation personnel was rising with the boom witnessed in the sector in the last few years and said the Centre would train around 2,400 youth for various aviation job roles.
He was speaking at the inauguration of a first-of-its-kind Multi Skill Development Centre (MSDC), where a 17-year-old girl, one of its first students, did the formal cutting of the ribbon, after Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju asked her to do the honours.
"Aviation is growing by leaps and bounds, we are the fastest growing in the world. Aviation needs skills and a lot of youngsters can come into this sector," Raju later told while interacting with reporters at the event.

Over 900 new aircraft are expected to be inducted by Indian scheduled airlines in the coming few years, he said. "Air connectivity for both passenger transport and air freight is increasing, with new air routes and operationalisation of unserved or underserved airports through UDAN regional connectivity scheme," he said.
Earlier, after finishing his address, Raju said he wanted the youngest in the group of girls who had enrolled for various courses, to do the honours. Seventeen-year-old Shreya turned out to be the lucky one after which the minister asked her to cut the ribbon and inaugurate the centre.
The MSDC is located at Chandigarh's old airport terminal building here.

The minister also interacted with the youngsters even giving them tips on how to deal with passengers who may be irritable sometimes.

"There is something called travel fatigue. In some people traveling to new places, the anxiety level is high, so the irritability also becomes high. You should not be adding fuel to that fire and handle them with patience," he said.
The MSDC has been set up in collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation and is supported by the Aerospace and Aviation Sector Skill Council (AASSC) of India.
On UDAN, he said, "We have already had two rounds of auctions, within these two auctions, we realised that we are looking at 80 destinations. Since independence till this government came in, we had 75 active airports in this country, by active I mean where scheduled flights go, now we are looking at 80 more destinations, so aviation is spreading all over the country."

With an outlay of Rs 5.25 crore, the MSDC project is a unique CSR initiative of AAI.
Speaking on the occasion, Kirron Kher said skilling is a major part of various initiatives undertaken by the Central government.
Chandumajra said there is abundant workforce in our country, but to utilise them we have to skill them. The Narendra Modi government has paid great attention to improving connectivity, which is yielding results, he said.
He demanded that a cargo centre be also set up in Mohali.