Plans afoot to address staff shortage

Business and trade associations in Gujarat are now focusing on tackling the growing manpower crunch in the state.

A number of industry associations such as Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) and Nasscom are taking initiatives in association with the government and private companies to create a bigger pool of qualified professionals.

GCCI has taken the lead in designing a 'Focus-Fraternity of Career Upgradation Scheme', in association with the Adani Group, which provides industry knowledge to undergraduate college students.

Through a certificate course in 'Infrastructure Industry Practices', the programme addresses finance management, management accounting, contract management, communication and human resource management. Navgujarat College has been associated with the programme and already 50 students have been trained.

Malay Mahadevia, director, Adani Group, said, "The programme has been created to enhance employability among undergraduates in the state. We have sent our own employees as faculty and have also arranged field visits. We are also looking at making offers to certain students."

This is the first time such a programme has been conducted in the state and the Adani Group is looking at starting a second batch.

"We are looking at more such initiatives," said Paru Jaykrushna, president, GCCI.

Meanwhile, the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) has decided to utilise the services of its faculty members to teach children of municipal schools.

"There are over 90 municipal schools in the state. We propose to involve AMA faculty in reaching out to these children and impart academic and non-academic education to them," says Janak Parikh, president of AMA.

The AMA board will soon meet to decide the modules of the programme and finalise the schools they would work with. According to Parikh, they would initially start with 5 schools. The association is also looking at creating an initiative called 'Project Ignite', which aims to make people pro-active about their surroundings.

"AMA is in the process of drafting 'Project Ignite', which broadly aims at collecting a group of senior citizens and home makers to take up a proactive role in resolving civic issues in their area as well as utilising their skills and experience to those who would have no access to them," added Parikh.

Similarly, Nasscom has tied up with the Gujarat government to introduce Nasscom Assessment of Competence (NAC) - an assessment-cum-certification programme for candidates who aspire to be a part of the ITeS-BPO industry.

Gujarat Informatics Limited (GIL) - the nodal agency of state for promotion of information technology, is the implementing agency for NAC Test.

The programme is aimed at creating a pool of talent by transforming the workforce into an 'employable workforce'. The medium of instruction is English. A job fair for the participants has already revoked the interest of top business houses in the country.