Will train 10 mn people across 16 sectors in 5 years: NIIT

The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship will spearhead the Skill Mission. This Mission will consolidate skill initiatives spread across ministries. It will also standardise procedures, outcomes across 31 sector skill councils. Mission's governing council will be chaired by the prime minister.

Below is the verbatim transcript of Rahul Patwardhan's interview with Latha Venkatesh & Sonia Shenoy on CNBC-TV18.

Sonia: Tell us what kind of orders have you received or are you executing from the government and because of new National Skill Development policy, how much of a benefit could it be for a company like yours?

A: NIIT has been in the skilling business for the last 35 years and we have trained about 35 million people in IT. In the last few years we have expanded that to address number of other sectors like retail, telecom, healthcare, media and entertainment and so on. We have experienced to do large scale training across the whole of India and we would like to see this as our responsibility to contribute to Skill India Programme to address the requirements for skilling and reskilling in the industry over the next five-ten years.

The demand for skilling in India is for about 100 million people to join into new jobs across 32 industry sectors and there is also a massive re-skilling requirement where we have to raise the level of skills of existing workforce across all industry sectors to world standards - that's about 400 million people need to be trained there. It is an immense opportunity. We are already engaged with number of government programmes both at state level and at central level, for example the Aajeevika Programme run by the central ministry of rural development across multiple states and recently this month we have participated in the pilot of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana. This is the new version of the Star Programme that was launched last year and we have successfully met the initial targets for training people in Jammu and Kashmir, north east and in Jharkhand.

Latha: I want to know whether the Skill India guys have got in touch with you. What we given to understand is all the ITIs are being brought under the skill ministry and that\\'s where the concentration is and then there are skill cards and skill loans being given. Is there anything in the digital space that the government is liaising with you and for which you will be conducting classes etc?

A: Absolutely. NIIT is in a joint venture with National Skill Development Corporation which is a corporatised entity of the government of India, focused on this programme of Skill India. However, through that joint venture we are engaged with sector skills council, represent the major industry players in each one of the 32 sectors of the Indian economy. So we are deeply engaged in Skill India Programme and I would like to state today on the eve of Skill India launch that NIIT is making a commitment to training ten million people over the next five years across 16 industry sectors. This is a big commitment but we have presence both in terms of our reach over 300 centres across India but more important the reach through our cloud campus and our synchronous learning technology platform we believe that we can make a significant contribution to the skilling needs but also the upskilling needs of the workforce that is already in the industry.

Latha: Because of NSDC do you get more students or do you open more classes. Exactly how does it impact you in terms of revenues or margins?

A: There are two or three models. The first model is that through programmes like Aajeevika which are central government or state government funded. There are specific targets for training x-number of people in different parts of the country on different subject domains. These are government funded programmes. Our job is to acquire students in those particular areas or districts, bring them into classrooms that we have organised and get them trained by faculty that we have organised and most important we have to take them to the placement. NIIT has the highest placement rate amongst the partners for NSDC at 85 percent of all students that have entered the class are getting placed and this is placement across all kinds of towns and cities in India.

The payments come through only when the results are delivered which means only when students actually demonstrate that they have been placed for three months to we actually get paid. So its tightly coupled programme, very well designed programme to guarantee quality of delivery of education.