Bengaluru: The Karnataka government is not ready for the task of providing skill development training to five lakh people this year, a promise it made in the recent budget. The problem is a lack of infrastructure, and the government is planning to get private agencies to conduct the training.
With the Modi government’s Skill India Mission getting traction, the state created a new skill development department six months ago, before setting an ambitious target of training five lakh youngsters to ensure employment. “With the sudden four-fold increase in our target, we are in a quandary. We don’t have the capacity to train youngsters. The state is all set to partially outsource skill development training to private agencies,” said an official of the skill development department.
Additional chief secretary for skill development department Sanjiv Kumar said the state had the infrastructure to train only about 2.5 lakh people a year.
Kumar said the government was considering enlisting the help of state-run Industrial Technical Institutes (ITI), polytechnics and skill development courses provided by the directorate of employment and training to increase its current capacity by 20,000 to 30,000 this year.
This will still not suffice and so the government is planning to outsource skill development training to the private sector. “We intend to rope in private training institutes and companies that can spare time and space to train young people. Remuneration will be given to these private players for their services,” said Kumar.
Sources said about 1.16 lakh people received skill development training from the government over the last five years. The Government Tool Room and Training Centre, the state’s primary institute, trained 53,000 people under its short and long-term skill development training course over 45 years.
Now, GTTC alone will need to increase its capacity by 15,000 to 20,000 people across its 22 centres in fiscal 2017-18 to meet the government targets.
The skill development department will be concentrating on training youth of Karnataka in construction, tourism, hospitality and IT-BT (floor level) jobs, apart from front-end jobs in financial services. The concentration on these sectors is based on the recommendations of the Dr Kasturirangan-headed Karnataka Knowledge Commission.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target of training 40.2 crore youth by 2022 under his Skill India Mission, chief minister Siddaramaiah has set a target of five lakh people in the current fiscal with an eye on the 2018 assembly polls.
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