At a time when Gujarat is eyeing a 15 per cent growth rate, the skilled manpower requirement in next five years has been pegged at 500,000. Speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Gujarat Annual Day Conference on 'Gujarat: Vocational Education & Training and Skill Development – The Livelihood', Maheshwar Sahu, principal secretary, Industry and Mines, Government of Gujarat emphasised on skill development.
"Over 1.8 million people employed in the industry and growth is expected at three per cent per annum. Our industry shall require 500,000 skilled manpower in the next five years. A mechanism has been put on a sound footing by setting up of the various skill up gradation centres in partnership with the industry so that we can fulfill the Industry requirements. About 123 centers have already been sanctioned which will cater to the skilled manpower need of the industry," Sahu added.
The conference also focused on augmentation of infrastructure and strategies for honing human capital.
"We are confident that India would be able to achieve 10 per cent growth and Gujarat 15 per cent growth. But the real challenge would be sustaining this growth rate which needs to work out a growth model depending on the continuity of the progressive policy and augmentation of the infrastructure as well as the strategies for honing the human capital. Services are the largest contributors to the national GDP but still the manufacturing sector is still the largest employer of manpower," said Yatindra Sharma, immediate past president, CII Gujarat.
Other speakers at the conference included CV Som, chief executive officer, Gujarat Knowledge Society, Dilip Chenoy, managing director and chief executive officer, National Skill Development Corporation, Raj David, chief operating officer - skill development, IL&FS Cluster Development Initiative Ltd, L Balasubramanium, president – school learning solutions, NIIT Ltd and Jeffry Tyler, general manager, Courtyard by Marriott.
Meanwhile, Rajeev Sharma, Associate Professor, Ravi J Mathai Centre for Education Innovation, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) talked about livelihood mapping and studying the employability potential by doing surveys for the industry requirements for the employment.
"There is a strong need of the Institute Industry partnership for providing need based employment," Sharma added.
