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Marwari seths shifting focus to vocational training

LACHHMANGARH: Winds of change blowing across the continents are now influencing the nature of philanthropic activities taken up by Marwari seths from the Shekhawati region in their home towns back in Rajasthan.

The scions of rich business houses who built dharamshalas, schools and hospitals are now setting up industrial training institutes (ITIs), vocational training centres for girls and farmers’ training institutes (FTIs) to compete with the challenges of globalisation.

“There is a felt need for skill development. The literacy rates have now reached higher levels and employment generation is the immediate need,” says G.N. Palriwala, head of the family which runs the Palriwala India Foundation (PIF) and the Seth Madanlal Palriwala Foundation (SMPF). “One has to go by the market conditions in philanthropy as well,” says the octogenarian who shuttles between Kolkata, Delhi and his home town Lachhmangarh.

The family trust has already acted in accordance with the changed way of thinking.

In fact, Mr. Palriwala, who along with his late brother G.S. Palriwala exported jute products in the 1960s, was here in connection with the foundation laying function of an ITI, to be run by the Palriwala Vocational Training and Research Institute (PVTRI).

The ITI, an initiative of PIF and the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, forms part of the Rajasthan Government’s much professed public-private participation.

Rajasthan Public Works Department Minister Rajendra Singh Rathore laid the foundation for the ITI building, which is coming up on a campus of 84 acres.

The State Government has allocated five bighas of land for the project. The institute is to be commissioned in two phases with a total outlay of Rs.47 crore.

“The vocational training centre is to make the youth from the poor and backward families self-reliant and acquire excellence in their vocation to enhance their global employability. No poor student will be denied admission for want of money to pay fees,” said Mr. Palriwala, who met President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam recently to discuss the project.

“The proposal is to train 50 per cent of the students free. The rest would be charged not for the reasons of making profit but to make the centre financially self-supporting,” he said.

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