Realising the dire need of competent manpower to suit the needs of industry, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Punjab to bring in place a joint partnership for the purpose of carrying out a ‘Skill gap Study and Analysis of six districts of Punjab’, which would help CII to create mechanism to fill gaps and address the needs of both the organised and unorganised sector. The districts chosen were Mohali, Patiala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Bathinda.
Sharing the contents of the study, Punjab Information and Technology Corporation Ltd Managing Director Rakesh Kumar Verma informed the report will ascertain the present level of skills available in different trades, find ways and means to attract investment in IT/ITeS and sectoral industrial parks, work on gaps between the industry demands and skills provided by institutes and suggest the ways of additional capacity building, and suggesting recommendations for implementation.
Congratulating CII, Punjab government Education and Industrial Training Minister of Technical Swarna Ram said, “Its heartening to know the industry has come forward to identify and fill the skills gap to meet the need of industry and service sector. Punjab is keen on upgrading and modernising the government institutes. “About Rs 316 crore is being spent on the upgradation and modernisation of the government institutes since 2005-2012.” Thus the demand of the industry and service sector to invest in vocational training has been met fully. Today 102 government institutes have been covered under three major projects, he informed.
Earlier, giving the highlights CII (North) Regional Committee on Skills and Education Co-Chairman Rajender Guleria said, CII and Punjab have been working closely to enhance the skill and employability of the youth in Punjab. “CII members have already adopted over 16 ITIs across the state under the PPP mode and this need of conducting skill gap study results from CII’s continuous efforts and course of deliberations after a meeting held on October 15, 2010, wherein the industry members and government felt the immediate need to have a clear picture of the exact requirement of skills in Punjab.
