Hyderabad : Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday underscored the need for upgradation of skills, especially engineering skills in the aviation sector, if the country is to begin to manufacture fighter jets and battle helicopters.
“The biggest challenge is trained manpower,” he said.
He was addressing a gathering at the inauguration of the Swarna Bharat Trust, Hyderabad chapter, at Muchhintal village of Shamshabad mandal, Ranga Reddy district.
Spread over 10 acres, the Trust plans to provide skill development training in various activities to 300 youth a year with hostel facility free of cost.
Its first centre set up in Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu’s village of Venkatachalam in 2001 had trained 20,000 youth. Several top industrialists, real estate barons, doctors and others have pitched in with funds, land and infrastructure for the Trust. Mr. Parrikar said: Having an aeronautical engineering degree alone is not enough and it is doubtful if the engineers are ready for the market. There is no scope for errors in aerospace engineering, it has to have zero error. We have a strange problem of shortage of skills among youth and no people to train them.
Expressing his amazement of Prime Minister Narendera Modi’s road map for India like the Swacch Bharat, Make in India, Start Up India, skill development and so on, the Minister said if the country could maintain better sanitation and hygiene standards, the number of tourists could increase by three or four-folds.
“All these programmes are for the youth of India as they need employment but we have this issue of no shortage of opportunities yet unemployed due to lack of skills,” he said, adding that the upcoming copter fuselage making unit at Adibatla in association with Boeing could kickstart an aerospace ecosystem. Union Minister for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya appealed to the assembled gathering to join the National Career Portal which links the job seekers with job givers.
The Government is also spending Rs.1,200 crore for employment generation with Rs.330 crore in Telangana, he said.
Earlier, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who inaugurated, urged the Trust to think of reviving Panchayat Raj institutions. “Due to the kind of politics being practised nowadays, and clamour for power, the PR set up has lost its focus over the years,” he said. Mr. Venkaiah Naidu said the Trust was apolitical, does not take Government funds and would be concentrating on uplift of rural women, youth and farmers. Managing Trustee and his daughter Deepa Venkat and others spoke.
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