"Through various skill development initiatives, the CII-Tamilnadu would provide skills training to over 40,000 students in the state" CII-Tamil Nadu State Council chairman Manikam Ramaswami said.
Under the theme, "Building and sustaining a competitive, inclusive and innovative Tamil Nadu" for the year 2008-09, CII would train 1,500 lift operators and truck drivers at Madurai, 1,000 welding operators in Tiruchirappalli, 1,500 machine operators at Coimbatore and 1,000 building workers in Chennai, Ramaswami said. In a bid to enhance the soft skills of graduates to increase their employability, the CII would also conduct training programmes for faculties both at school level as well as at the college level.
"In the first phase, we are expecting to train about 5,000 teachers on Information and Communication Technology" he said. "On the country's overall GDP, Tamil Nadu contributes about 55 per cent through services sector and we are expecting this to increase in future", he said, adding CII would also take steps on dissemination of government policies to the farmers in areas like pricing and crop management.
On agro-business and rural empowerment, Ramaswami said that CII was promoting farm mechanisation, which was the key to reduce the number of man power required for farming without affecting farm production. The association would also focus more on the health sector in the State under the theme "Healthcare for All", Ramaswami said, adding they would identify the role of Public/Private enterprises, health insurance in this area.
Recently, CII has also opened three new district offices in Erode, Karur and Tuticorin. "We want to be closely associated with small industrial units located in these areas and widen our presence" CII-Southern Region Vice-Chairman C K Ranganathan said. CII has also planned to increase in membership tremendously in the future.
In 2001-02, the association had 560 members and presently it has 1,037 members, he said.
