As a part of the nationwide skill development programme, the department of technical education in West Bengal has readied a proposal for 160 new Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) and 700 Industrial Training Centres (ITC)."We have been pushing for these for the last 18 months but could not move forward in absence of a clear guideline coming from the Centre," says Chakradhar Maikap, the minister in charge of technical education and training in West Bengal.
Referring to this year's Union budget where the finance minister again stressed the need to launch world class skill development programme, the West Bengal minister says, "Yes, we are hearing a lot of noise about it. But we don't know what is being done by the Centre at the ground level."
There seems to be a gap of communication between the Centre and the states on this issue.
According to Maikap, the new ITIs and the ITCs are to be set up in PPP mode. Broadly, the idea is the Centre will provide 40 per cent of resources, and the land, water, road electricity and other infrastructures are to be provided by the state, rest will be borne by the industry. But, unless all these are formulated clearly, the state cannot approach the industry or other private investors for setting up of new ITIs or ITCs.
It is true that compared to Kerala and some other states, West Bengal has less number of the ITIs and the ITCs. At present, there are 31 state run ITIs, 21 state sponsored ITCs and 25 private ITCs in West Bengal where the total intake capacity of trainees is 11,695 per year.
The corresponding figures for Kerala is 82 ITIs, 467 ITCs and total capacity is 60,121, for Andhra Pradesh 92 ITIs, 476 ITCs and total capacity is 111,585. Maikap contends that in those states 80% of these ITI and ITCs are privately run, while in West Bengal 80% are state run.
But the mere numbers do not give the real picture. Way back in 2002 the Government of India expressed concerns about the quality of vocational training institutions.
Several studies and evaluations of ITIs have shown significant variability in the quality, reflecting differences across states and partly, the characteristics of individual ITIs. Many states have created new ITIs to cover new areas but with inadequate work or resource.
Also, much of the training provided in the ITIs is for skills that are in little demand.
Curricula have not been revised for many years and are not attuned to market requirements, showing the lack of involvement of the industry. Lack of proper infrastructure and shortage of suitably trained teachers are also adding to this problem.
To address these issues, the Government of India has envisaged a programme to establish Centre of Excellence in 500 ITIs throughout the country. The aim of this programme is to make the courses more relevant to the labour market.
According to state technical education minister Maikap, in the last four years, West Bengal has upgraded its 31 state run ITIs into Centre of Excellence. For that, each of the ITI is getting Rs 2.5 crore annually. In his budget speech this year, Pranab Mukherjee has reminded that the Prime Minister's Council on National Skill Development has laid down principles for operating strategies for skill development. The Council has a mission of creating 50 crore skilled people by 2022.
Of these, the target for the National Skill Development Corporation, which has started functioning from October 2009, is 15 crore. Moreover, the Ministry of Textiles has set an ambitious target of training 30 lakh persons over 5 years.
According to Maikap, the West Bengal government is aware of the widening gap between the need and availability of the skill training facilities in the state.
But without proper guidelines coming from the Centre it could not move forward with the PPP model.
It has decided to set up another 20 new ITIs in 2010-11 for which the budgetary allocation is being enhanced from last year's Rs 284 crore to Rs 374 crore.
