Union government aims to make India the "design outsourcing hub of the world" in the next decade by creating more designers in different fields, Union Minister for Commerce Anand Sharma said today.
"Finland has 145 designers per million population, Japan 90 per million whereas India has a dismal two designers per million population. This needs to be changed in the next five years and we should aim to create a pool of 15,000 top designers", Sharma told reporters here.
Earlier in the day, he laid a foundation stone for the proposed National Institute of Design at Gopannapalli near here, in the company of Union HRD Minister M M Pallam Raju and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.
"The NID caters to many verticals like industrial designing, communication, automobiles, civil aviation, animation and interior designing. India should eventually become an outsourcing hub for designers. For this we need to weave in a philosophy of design into education and build linkages with education system", Sharma said.
He said the Centre announced the National Design Policy with the aim of "building on our traditional knowledge skills and capabilities and ensure that our shop-floor workers, craftsmen and artisans become equal partners in the manufacturing innovative products and contemporising traditional crafts".
"NID, an institution of excellence, would not only produce designers but also have institutional linkages with National Institute of Fashion Technology, Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) besides international institutes", the minister said.
He also announced that an FDDI would also be set up in Hyderabad which already has the NIFT.
The NID Hyderabad would come up in a 30-acre campus at a cost of Rs 155 crore and have an intake of about 500 students. It offers a four-year under-graduate and a two-and-a-half year post-graduate courses.
Andhra Pradesh Major Industries Minister J Geeta Reddy, Small Scale Industries Minister G Prasad Kumar, MP T Subbirami Reddy, Chief Secretary P K Mohanty and other senior officials were present.
