Retailers look up to ITIs for wholesale solution

FACED with acute manpower crunch, country’s top retailers are turning to Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) for raising and replenishing their front-end workforce. Retail bigwigs, including Mukesh Ambani of Reliance and Rajan Bharti Mittal of Bharti-Wal-Mart, may soon be face to face with ITI directors persuading them to introduce retail courses in their institutes at the earliest. ITIs are spread across the country and impart skills to trainees in different industrial trades (electrical, electronics, mechanical) for lower-level skilled employment, mainly in manufacturing units. The government in association with Industry body Ficci is organising a conference of ITI directors and retail industry leaders at the end of the month in New Delhi. Reliance Retail, in its bid to ensure a regular supply of front-end talent to its upcoming stores, had approached Directorate General of Employment & Training (DGET), part of ministry of labour, for holding a meeting of the ITIs. DGET in turn roped in Ficci to hold this industry-ITI meet.
DGET, the policy making body for the ITIs in the country, is presently working towards introducing retail courses in these institutes. “We are identifying institutions and instructors for retail courses,” director general of DGET Sharda Prasad told ET. The process may take three months. Two separate six-month retail courses are likely to be introduced for salespersons and supervisors at the ITIs. The course would comprise 3 months of classroom teaching followed by an equal duration of apprenticeship. The curriculum has already been prepared and approved by the National Council for Vocational Training. Mr Prasad says all mandatory approvals for starting these courses at the ITIs has been taken, but a budgetary allocation is pending. An expenditure of Rs 16 crore has been proposed for the purpose. Of late, industry in general has been quite enthusiastic towards engaging ITIs for their manpower needs. Industry bodies Ficci, CII and Assocham have volunteered to adopt several of these institutes in order to ensure that right skills are imparted to trainees and a pool of productive employees created. But there is scepticism in some quarters over ITIs’ ability to produce right talent for retail industry. Says consulting firm Technopak’s chairman Arvind Singhal: “ITIs are meant to provide technical skills and they should focus on that.