The company has decided to provide free-of-cost training to the people from poverty-stricken regions for working in leather processing units of the Kanpur-Unnao and Agra leather clusters.
Company chairman and Leather Exports Council chief Mukhtar-ul-Ameen told Business Standard that one such training programme had already been completed on a trial basis and the results were very encouraging.
About 70 people trained for various leather processing techniques have been placed with local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) immediately. The project has been undertaken by the joint venture company with the help of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).
SIDBI chairman said the bank will help the trained workers to set up their own micro and small processing units by providing micro credit. This is especially possible in saddlery manufacturing.
"Their finished product would be easily purchased by the larger tanneries for further use, processing and marketing," said Irshad Mirza, chairman, Mirza Tanneries.
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The company has been formed a few days back to cater to various infrastructural and skilled manpower needs of the ailing leather industry in the Kanpur region.
The Kanpur leather cluster comprises of about 1,600 SMEs providing employment to more that 100,000 persons and contributing Rs 2,900-crore production annually. It is a global player in upholstery leather, footwear and leather goods.
The formal declaration of the company was announced at a hotel in the city Superhouse Tannery's Mukhtar-ul-Ameen and IL&FS Infrastructure Ltd Chairman RCM Reddy after signing a joint venture agreement. SIDBI Chairman, Basant Seth and Assistant General Manager (AGM) Aakash Pawar were also present on the occasion.
SIDBI is also running a separate programme to enhance the competitiveness of SME clusters through strengthening of Business Development Services (BDS) in association with IL&FS Cluster Development Initiative Ltd.
IL&FS Chairman Reddy told Business Standard that he planned to extend the training programmes to people in drought-hit areas of Hamirpur, Banda, Mahoba, Chitrakoot, Jhansi and Fateh-pur to ameliorate their plight. "They will be trained for saddlery, stitching, shoe upper making and other related twelve trades," he added.
The trained people will be able to find jobs in Agra apart from the leather units in Unnao and Jajmau. There is a demand for more than 10,000 skilled labourers in the country.
The Kanpur footwear sector has been facing a massive crunch of skilled shop-floor workers and the industries were losing out on booking orders from international buyers and missing production deadlines.
The reason being absence of a quality training institute whi-ch could impart short term courses in footwear manufac-turing to youth while ensuring they get placed in factories.
Reddy said under similiar circumstances the company was able to increase the production of leather units in Chennai by about four times. The company has now decided to repeat the feat here by getting rid of outdated techniques and unskilled labourers plaguing the leather industry.
The Bundelkhand region has already received various relief measures from the administration to handle the severe water paucity and poverty. These initiatives will however, need some gestation period to yield positive results. Meanwhile, this employment drive for the region has come as an immediate hope for people here to earn at least two square meals.
The 70 members of first trained batch were visibly elated after receiving the certificates and jobs together. "Now, I can think of two square meals a day even living at my home turf," said Ramesh from Jhansi.
The company will also invest Rs. 300 crore to develop leather parks, upgrade the common effluent treatment plant in Jajmau, develop a high capacity training centre in Kanpur and Unnao each and build a ten megawatt power plant in the area from June this year.
Another 200 crore rupees have been earmarked for upgradation of existing infrastructure and techniques used by the local leather processing Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Amin told that the central government had fixed a target of Rs. 1100 crore for development of leather sector under the