“Skill India initiative”, Construction Workers to be skilled soon, says Faridabad MLA

Sanjay Chaturvedi

“We would be training the root level workers in the construction industry”, said MLA Vipul Goel. He said, “We are working on a project that proposes to train the root level workers in the line of electricians, plumbers and off course the construction workers too”. Goel said that the project would be in a final shape in the coming few months as the experts are studying the modalities of the training module. He further added that we have studied the training module of “earn while you earn” adopted by a Non Government Organisation (NGO) “Kushal” in Pune. The NGO has joined hands with CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India) to impart hands on training to the construction workers. The training is on the site itself on which the workers are doing their work. Hence, no wages loss is there for the workers and they get training by the Kushal educators, said Goel. He said that we are also working on the same lines. For construction workers we may have a tie-up with Kushal people. For other form of root level workers we would be finding educators, said the MLA from Faridabad.

“Earn while you Learn” is an initiative in the line of ‘Skill India’. While the concept is yet to hit the grounds with a bang, the Pune based NGO Kushal has already been doing this successfully for the last few years. Kushal is a social enterprise, executing the  project for up skilling and training construction workforce which is a joint initiative of CREDAI Pune Metro with NSDC (National Skill Development Corporation). Started four years ago and having already trained 20,000 construction workers, Kushal has won 13 International, national and government awards. Kushal is a pioneering on-job-on-site, earn-while-you-learn training program entailing zero wage loss for its trainees.

The real estate sector in India is a major employment driver, being the second largest employer next only to agriculture. It substantially contributes to the gross domestic product of the country. However, this sector happens to be one of the most unorganized sectors in India and faces huge shortage of skilled workers on the construction sites. The percentage of skilled workers in India is just above 3% as compared to China, Korea and Japan which is more than 75%.

In next 5 years Kushal is targeting to train 43,000 workers, besides it shall be taking its Training Pan India in a big way through CREDAI Chapters. If the proposal Faridabad MLA is working on succeeds and an understanding with Kushal is finalised, this number may further rise added by the prospective trainees in Faridabad and NCR.  Subsequently, Kushal is to train 80,000 workers in next 9 years and then target is to train 1 lakh workers in 12 years.

“World Skills” is an international skills competition for youth that is held in a different member country every two years. Competitors from 17 to 22 years old demonstrate their excellence in a number of different skilled trades and technology contest areas. This year Tikam Singh for Tiling and Parshuram Naik for Bricklaying are representing India in Brazil from 11 to 15 August carrying a lot of confidence due to their Bronze Medal winning performance in New Zealand.

1. P. Shroff (Chairman Kushal) said, ‘The training which we are providing caters to that strata of society which is indeed illiterate, semi-literate hence the course content relies mostly on audio-visual aids for training. Not willing to stop just at training and keenly intending to socially uplift them we are also been opening their bank accounts. So far more than 6,790 accounts have been opened’.

Rakesh Gupta, Chairman RPS Group said, “Yes, Kushal has done good job in West and we are into talks with it for implementation of same skill training exercise in NCR including Faridabad, Noida, Ghaziabad and Gurgaon.”

Shantilal Kataria, President CREDAI said, ‘Kushal will surely be able to achieve the Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Skill India’, by showcasing and giving skills in India an international platform like World Skill competition it shall give much needed impetus to construction skills. We hire trainers who would speak the language of the workers, and would physically be able to teach them by doing the job themselves, be demonstrative, hands-on, thus we seek out people who have them worked in the respective trades for 15-20 years and are thoroughly skilled in their craft. Going by the milestones ‘Kushal’ has achieved and the plans Faridabad MLA is having, the day when all our root levels workers would be 100% skilled is not a dream anymore.