To address growing concerns arising from automation, the Karnataka government is planning to set up a Ministry for Skill Development.

Addressing a gathering of corporates at CII’s (Confederation of Indian Industry) 12th India Innovation Summit, RV Deshpande, Minister for Large and Medium Industries & Infrastructure, said that since corporates are not creating the same number of jobs, as they are embracing more automation, the government is planning to set up a Ministry which will ensure that individuals can be gainfully employed.

Deshpande added that there will be new kinds of jobs that will be created and the government is making an effort to train engineers in some areas such as Agile, Scrum, mobile app development and others.

This could be a new initiative by the government, which employs 1.2 million people in the IT sector in the state, a hotbed of job creation, which is slowing down considerably as companies like Infosys, Wipro are scaling down their recruitment plans.

These developments are happening at a time when automation is making inroads in Indian companies that are facing cost pressures and employability related issues when it comes to software engineers.

According to industry watchers, India’s IT services industry will lose 6.4 lakh “low-skilled” jobs to automation in the next five years. India produces 1.5 million engineering graduates every year while the available jobs are pegged at 2 lakh to 2.5 lakh, according to Siddarth Bharwani, Vice-President at Jetking Infotrain.

Most of the ministries are lagging behind the targets set by the National Skills Development Agency under “Skill India” initiative. According to October 2015 data, against a plan to train 1.4 million individuals in the IT sector, only 142,153 people have been trained.

Source: Business Line