Andhra Pradesh aims to impart skill training to two crore people in 10 years

Hyderabad:  With an aim to provide skilled human resource for local as well as global industries, the Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation is working on a plan to train two crore people in the state in ten years, an official said today.

In the next one year, the APSSDC aims to train two lakh people and by 2018-19 it will train 15-16 lakh, APSSDC CEO Ganta Subbarao said.

"APSSDC is working on a plan to train two crore people in the state in ten years," he said.

Subbarao informed Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu that APSSDC is planning to have six clusters for skill development in Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Guntur, Nellore, Chittoor and Ananthapur districts.

"These clusters will cover all the 13 districts of the state," he said, adding that each cluster would focus on 2-3 sectors to impart skills.

Each cluster would have six colleges where students would be trained in various skills, based on their interest. These 36 colleges (six in each cluster) would eventually become Centres of Excellence (with best infrastructure, facilities for quality education and extra-curricular activities) where they could either become autonomous, or apply for a deemed university status, an official release quoted him as saying.

Skill training is imparted to people by assessing industry needs for workforce. It not only focuses on skill upgradation or training, but also aims to create entrepreneurs who will be job creators, Subbarao said.

The Chief Minister said that, "We could hire an international consultant who can analyse the human resources requirement in various sectors globally. Based on that report, we can impart skills and get students placed outside India in industries in other countries."

The APSSDC has also proposed setting up a Skill Development University in 300-500 acres which would house centres of excellence, manufacturing and R&D set up, entrepreneurship and incubation facilities, driver training institute, an integrated school and a consortium of industry bodies.

The CM, replying to this proposal, suggested that the APSSDC or the Skill Development University could be linked to the six universities that will be set up in the state (water, marine, energy, sports, logistics and hospitality).

Subbarao said AP currently has 17 mobile app and software training centres which would be scaled to 34 this year.

The Chief Minister said that the government is also mulling establishing an Education City.

He suggested that the APSSDC should also explore designing courses based on the interest of the students and look for options of upgrading skills through Open Universities.