Skill Development in the port & maritime sector is an opportunity to improve the country's coastal areas and be the leading supplier of skilled youth in the sector globally, a top shipping ministry official said today.
Ministry of Shipping under its flagship Rs 14 lakh crore Sagarmala Programme a world class Centre of Excellence in maritime and ship building (CEMS) is being set up in partnership with Siemens and Indian Register of Shipping (IRS) at a cost of Rs 766 crore.
CEMS aims to become an international nodal centre in South Asia, attracting students from neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia for skill development in the port and maritime sector.
"Skill Development in the Port & Maritime sector is an opportunity to improve our coastal areas, usher in port led prosperity and provide the world with skilled youth. We are one of the leading suppliers of seafarers in the world and now want to be the leading supplier for all talent in the Port and Maritime sector," Secretary Shipping, Gopal Krishna said addressing a workshop here.
The shipping ministry in association with Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gramin Kaushal Yojana (DDU GKY) and Ministry of Rural Development conducted a one day workshop on "skill development in the port and maritime sector" here.
Member of Parliament from Andaman and Nicobar, Bishnu Pada Ray lauded the efforts for skilling youth of the coastal districts and providing them with employment opportunities.
A testimonial booklet highlighting the success stories of trainees trained in Phase -1 of the Sagarmala-DDU GKY convergence programme was released on the occasion along with skill gap studies for 21 coastal districts.
A shipping ministry statement said it has completed skill gap studies of 21 coastal districts in eight states and three Union Territories - Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep and currently its implementation is underway.
For implementation, training of 500 students per-year-per-district for the next 3 years through Sagarmala DDU GKY (MoRD) - convergence for port and maritime sector skills is being undertaken and respective state governments are issuing Expression of Interest(EoI) for empanelling training partners, the statement said.
Project approvals for Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal have been done, it said, adding that for the first phase, training has commenced for 2028 students, 1,917 have been trained and 1,128 have been placed. 92 students are under training in Odisha.
The statement said the world class centre of excellence in CEMS will have campuses in Vishakhapatnam and Mumbai, and will train 10,512 students per year.
Partial operationalisation of CEMS is expected to start by the June-end 2018 and these are likely to be completed by September 2018.
The ministry said for maritime logistics, a multi-skill development centre for maritime logistics is being set up in Uran near JNPT Mumbai.
This centre in collaboration with Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship will provide for entry level skilled workforce for maritime logistics.
It also said that in order to improve Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) in ship breaking yards in Alang, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, a OSH training for all entry level workers has been undertaken. So far, 5,011 workers have been trained in OSH.
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