Karnataka ties up with corporates to skill 4,000 students with state government financial support

Karnataka government on November 19 announced the launch of NIPUNA Karnataka and confirmed tie-ups with leading corporates to train 4,000 students in the first phase.

The total project budget is Rs 12.45 crore, of which the state will contribute Rs 4.98 crore.

In this phase, the government has partnered with four skilling aggregators - ICT Academy, ARWS, FUEL and AISECT- in collaboration with Capgemini, Wells Fargo, Standard Chartered and Sumeru Enterprises.

ICT Academy, in partnership with Capgemini, will receive a project outlay of Rs 3 crore, with a state commitment of Rs 1.22 crore, to skill 1,000 students.

ARWS, also partnered with Capgemini, will train another 1,000 students with a project cost of Rs 3 crore and government support of Rs 1.20 crore.

FUEL, in partnership with Wells Fargo and Standard Chartered, has been allocated Rs 4 crore, of which Rs 1.60 crore will come from the state, to train 1,000 students.

AISECT, working with Sumeru Enterprises and FWC Inc, will skill 1,000 students with a project budget of Rs 2.40 crore and a state commitment of Rs 96 lakh.

“NIPUNA Karnataka aims to offer targeted training in high-demand fields such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and data science. The government expects more than 2,800 job opportunities to be generated in the first phase,” IT-BT Minister Priyank Kharge said.

Officials said the participating skilling partners have a strong record of placing candidates with major employers, including Accenture, TCS, Wipro, Mphasis, Hexaware, 3i Infotech, Honeywell, DXC Technologies, Genpact, NTT Data, Sify, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Jio, BankBazaar, Datamatics, Atos Syntel, Zebra Technologies, Aditya Birla Group and Muthoot Finance. This is expected to create a broad spectrum of employment opportunities for NIPUNA beneficiaries across sectors.

Kharge added that NIPUNA Karnataka is emerging as a national model where corporates and skilling partners work together to build a future-ready workforce. “Encouraged by the programme’s early traction, several large employers across IT, ESDM, biotech and BFSI sectors have submitted expressions of interest to skill an additional 10,000 youth and create around 7,000 new jobs across the state,” he said.

90 women to be trained in semiconductor sector

Separately, the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ESSCI) signed an MoU with Marvell Semiconductor to train 90 women in semiconductor-related skills, including VLSI design and embedded technologies. Marvell will fully sponsor the programme, which will be delivered in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and integrated into graduation-level curricula to ensure women gain industry-ready skills as part of their academic pathway.