A day after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee proposed to the Tata Group to set up a factory on nearly 1,000 acre of land at Goaltore in West Midnapore, Tata Metaliks on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the state government to provide “employment-based skill development” training to youths in the Industrial Training Institute Midnapore.
Welcoming the Tata move to collaborate with the state government to develop skilled manpower, Banerjee on Thursday assured top officials of the group that land would not be a problem if they propose to set up a project here.
“You can take land for other projects in the state from our land bank,” she told the officials after making the announcement that 25- acre land had been given to Volvo for a project in Panagarh Industrial Park. “Volvo had asked for a 25-acre plot to set up their facility which we have facilitated. This is good news for the state and it comes at the same time when Tata Metaliks has joined hands with the state government,” she said.
The MoU was signed between Tata Metaliks and the Technical Education, Training and Skill Development department in the presence of the Chief Minister, Education minister Partha Chatterjee, Finance minister Amit Mitra and Technical Education minister Ashima Patra in Nabanna on Thursday evening. Sanjiv Paul, MD, Tata Metalicks and SK Pramanick, Director of Industrial Training signed the MoU.
On Tata Metaliks CSR initiative, the chief minister said: “You all have taken the responsibility of providing training in ITI Midnapore. We are ready to provide any kind of support if you provide similar training in other districts as well. Bengal has talent and it just needs to get utilised in the right way. Companies including Raymond, Samsung and Maruti are also providing skill development training and there could be no other better way of serving society than providing skill development training to the youth.”
Sanjib Paul said that initially 1,200 youth would get training in plumbing, housekeeping for hospitality sector, beauty care, security management, carpentry and scaffolding at the Skill Development Centre every year. The capacity of the institute would be increased gradually.
There are currently 146 polytechnics and 227 ITIs in the state, compared to 65 polytechnics and 80 ITIs in 2011. The state government has also set a target of providing skill development training to six lakh youth each year.
The state government has also launched ‘Utkarsha Bangla’, a scheme aimed at providing skill development training to four lakh youth under three major components – project mode, non-project mode and recognition of prior learning mode.