The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : 15 million new jobs in State by next decade, says CII

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 21, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

15 million new jobs in State by next decade, says CII

Special Correspondent

Survey stresses on initiatives to better employability of graduates

REPORT PRESENTED: Madras University Vice-Chancellor S.P. Thyagarajan hands over the first copy of the report, State Level Skill Mapping Study, done by the Confederation of Indian Industry-Tamil Nadu to Sanjay Jayarathnavelu, vice-chairman, CII-TN, in Chennai on Monday. K. Jayaramakrishnan , chairman of the Taskforce on Industry-Institute Interaction, CII-TN ( left) and B. Santhanam, chairman, CII-TN ( right), look on. — Photo: Shaju John

CHENNAI: The booming economy will generate a glut of jobs in Tamil Nadu over the next decade. According to a State-level Skill Mapping Study released by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)-Tamil Nadu here on Monday, the best picks will be from the automative, IT and IT enabled services, textiles, leather, light engineering, construction and financial services sectors.

This is the first time the CII-TN is conducting a sector-specific employability survey.

"The total incremental job creation in the next ten years would number around 13 million to 15 million, almost twenty percent of the State's population. However, to bridge the demand-supply gap, all stakeholders need to take a series of initiatives, and the focus should be on improving both quality and quantity of the manpower available, apart from importing requisite manpower," B. Santhanam, chairman, CII-TN said that while explaining the key findings of the survey, which was released by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Madras S.P. Thyagarajan.

Employability standards

Though the State boasts of a high literacy rate and an established higher education apparatus which can generate around 4,00,000 skilled manpower annually, around 40 per cent of graduates from the engineering pool and 70 per cent from the arts and science streams do not meet employability standards.

According to the survey, the State must create additional educational infrastructure through public-private partnerships to train 80,000 students annually over the next decade. To cater to this growing demand, the Government must establish a Skill Development Fund to the tune of Rs. 600 crore to 700 crore annually.

"Finding the right skill and retaining available talent would be the biggest challenge the industry would face," the survey said.

The Government should start a Grassroots Level Skill Development Initiative (GSDI) to impart basic job skills to around 0.8 million unskilled labourers, mostly from the agricultural sector, so that the industrial and service sectors would absorb them. The GSDI should become a reality by 2009, the study recommended.

The Government, along with industries and academic bodies, should also implement a Cluster-based Skill Development Initiative to train manpower employed by a cluster.

"The study would form an important resource tool for policy-making bodies and a unique opportunity for institutions and industries to come together," Mr. Thyagarajan said.

To this end, the varsity authorities proposed to the Universities Grant Commission to set up community colleges to train drop-outs/semi-skilled labour, he added.

Sanjay Jayarathnavelu, vice-chairman, CII-Tamil Nadu and K. Jayaramakrishnan, chairman, Taskforce on Industry-Institute Interaction, CII-TN, were also present.

Growth Summit

A two-day conference on `Challenges and Enablers to Exponential Growth,' organised by CII-Tamil Nadu was also inaugurated here on Monday. N. Lakshmi Naryanan, president and CEO, Cognizant Technology Solutions, delivered the keynote address on `Road to Exponential Growth.'

K. Raghavendra Rao, Managing Director, Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd; Venkatesh Rajagopal, Managing Director, Celebrity Fashions; C. Satyan, executive director, Hatsun Agro Products Ltd; B. Soundararajan, Managing Director, Suguna Poultry Farm Ltd and R. Venkataraman, executive director, KPMG, also spoke.

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