In a four-way public private partnership (PPP) initiative, industry, consultants and governments are getting together to fix the problem of skilled manpower for industry. A Plan B is being created to speed up skill development, under which industry will set up greenfield privately owned and operated vocational training institutes. These institutes will be created under a PPP model in which Infrastructure Leasing and Finance Service (ILFS), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and central and state government councils for vocational training will participate. FICCI and ILFS recently signed an MoU to institutionalise a PPP framework for the creation and management of VET infrastructure and services. ILFS Education and Technology Services Ltd is a separate arm of the company for upgrading the vocational education infrastructure. These private vocational education training (VET) institutes would be run by industry in collaboration with the National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) and State Council for Vocational Training. The curriculum for these institutes would be designed after consultation with NCVT to establish benchmarks without slipping set standards. All courses to be offered at these institutes would be accredited with NCVT with placement facilities.According to ILFS managing director Pardeep Singh, “There are 1,895 government-run ITIs for 700,000 students in the country. Hence, the need for more vocational training institutes to match the industry requirement of skilled labour. These greenfield privately owned and operated institutes would serve the purpose.”The idea of setting up such institutes is, however, still at a “planning stage”, Singh pointed out. “But this does not mean that industry would not upgrade and adopt existing government-run ITIs.”Speaking to The Indian Express, FICCI secretary general Amit Mitra said, “We are finally adopting 30 government ITIs out of 42 identified by the labour ministry.” This is the result of negotiations with the labour ministry, state governments and FICCI through video conferencing. “We are confident that we would be able to adopt 50 government ITIs by the end of this fiscal.”Mitra added, “Apart from adopting government ITIs, we would go for greenfield privately owned and operated VET institutes. It is easy to set up such institutes in lesser time without any intervention compared to adopting government-run institutes. Our main objective is to make available skilled labour for industry to ensure inclusive growth.” Earlier, FICCI had given a list of 42 ITIs to the Ministry of Labour after consulting various state governments. But later, the state governments refused to approve 12 ITIs’ adoption by industry. No reasons were cited.
