Country's first short course on outsourcing at IIT-KGP

Kolkata: The IIT Kharagpur is conducting a multi-disciplinary short course on outsourcing practices in India, the first of its kind course introduced in the country on the advice of the Union government, the institute said in a statement Friday.

The one-week course, run by the Department of Mining Engineering at the institute campus in Kharagpur, included deliberations on how outsourcing of work can be made ethically and within legally justified parameters and how the best practices can be encouraged in the labour market.

The course started Thursday and will continue for seven days, the statement said.

Such courses will be run from time to time in the institute throughout the year, each having one week duration.

The first batch undertaking the course has been drawn predominantly from the power and coal sectors.

The initiative witnessed resource cooperation from the ministries of Labour and Employment, Rural Development, IBM, pollution control boards and other regulatory bodies, the statement said.

The move is aimed at sensitising both the public and private sectors and show the way for best practices in outsourcing, it said.

Convenor of the course, Prof Jayanta Bhattacharya, Department of Mining Engineering and School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, said, "The companies are thinking short term. They are creating work practices that are not sustainable...."

It was time to create a situation sticking to the best practices used in the world, where efficiency was assured, so that there can be a win-win situation for both parties, he said.

"Funding or technology is not the problem, but employing people in legal and ethical terms is. The people who draw up notice inviting tenders or NITs, often from accounts or engineering backgrounds, have no understanding of the law or even, actual engineering practice," Bhattacharya pointed out.

The course also involved the faculty of Mining Engineering, Intellectual Property Law and the Vinod Gupta School of Management who have a long experience in dealing with regulations related to industry such as environmental clearance, land acquisition, outsourcing standards and other burning issues.