Maharashtra Industries Minister Subhash Desai called upon education institutions giving engineering training to focus on skill development. “Today’s employers want to employ persons who will be of utility to their industry. They won’t take anybody in simply because they have a degree.

Therefore, we need to adopt the path of skill development,” Desai said here at the 45th annual national convention and international conference of Indian Society for Technical Education. He said that Maharashtra government was concerned about the state of the affairs and concentrated its efforts on skill development. “Around 10 lakh graduates pass out every year and look for jobs.

They apply, apply but get no reply. Only 20 per cent of them find jobs. The others keep struggling.

This is happening because we haven’t revamped even the basic courses taught at our ITIs over a period of last 50 years,” he added. Desai observed and called for reshaping the type of education that is being imparted at these institutions. On Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), he said the state bagged 35 per cent of the total FDI in the country.

“Having bagged this is not enough. They (industries) are demanding skilled manpower. They can’t recruit mere degree holders.

And here, everything makes a difference,” he added. To overcome this problem the state invited industry captains from the world to impart skill training to the ITI students and signed a MoU with Bosch so that the workforce became employable. Meanwhile, on textile industry he said that the state government is introducing a new policy as textile is an important sector.

“Earlier, the textile industry was focused in non-cotton growing regions, but now we have decided to set up this industry in only cotton growing regions and 10 textile parks are coming up in Vidarbha, Marathwada and north Maharashtra regions. He said the first of the proposed ten textile parks was coming up in Nandgaonpeth near Amravati, which was being developed as a model township for textile. According to the Minister, nine big textile houses like NTC, Siyaram, Shyam Indofab and Raymonds were setting huge units here with a collective investment of over Rs 15,000 crore, thus creating job opportunities for more than 10,000 locals.

Source: Moneycontrol.com