Professional Plunge

The state has over 15,000 primary, middle and higher secondary schools, nearly 100 ITIs, polytechnics, IT-enabled institutes and three new engineering colleges.

In just a year Himachal Pradesh has got ten new degree colleges, taking the total number to 53. The state has over 15,000 primary, middle and higher secondary schools, nearly 100 ITIs, polytechnics, IT-enabled institutes and three new engineering colleges. Himachal8217;s track record makes it one of top five states in the country as far as education is concerned. It8217;s a state where a primary school can be found in a distance of less than a kilometre and a half. Yet, the state with its ongoing investment drive exceeding Rs 19,000 crore in past three-and-a-half years, is in crisis.

With all this education it hasn8217;t manage to produce the required number of professionals.

What8217;s making matters even worse is the state8217;s industrial policy that requires every new entrepreneur to ensure that at least 70 per cent of his workforce is made up of Himachalis. The IT industry, that needs trained professionals, is hit the hardest. Textile, pharmaceutical, automobile and chemical units are fellow sufferers.

According to recent projections, the state will need more than 40,000 professionals by 2009. The ongoing industrial package ends a year later. The IT industry alone will be short of 15,000 to 16,000 employees.

To select qualified candidates locally, the employers will have to screen at least four to five lakh aspirants. Since the brightest of the lot tend to get jobs outside the state, Himachal8217;s problem could turn graver.

While there is a shortfall of professionals, there are more than nine lakh unemployed youths registered in the state8217;s employment exchanges. A very large number of these are graduates and even post-graduates. 8220;When any industry sends its requirements to the local exchange, we hardly find enough registered professionals. Thus, either we don8217;t fill the posts or struggle to get NOCs to recruit people from outside,8221; says a leading industrialist.

For the past two decades, the focus of the government has been merely on opening new schools, colleges and ITIs. Colleges have opened even in areas where people require professional and vocational institutes. 8216;8216;Not even a single professional institute has opened in Baddi 8211; the biggest industrial hub of textile and pharmaceutical industry,8221; says Arun Rawat, general secretary of the Baddi-Brotiwala-Nalagarh Industrial Association.

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A senior state bureaucrat blames it on faulty planning. The government, in fact never made any attempt to study the demands of the industry and open professional and vocational institutes. This is perhaps one of the reasons that the country8217;s IT majors have kept out of the state.

Chief minister Virbhadra Singh is not completely unaware of the problem. 8220;Our focus shouldn8217;t be merely on openly new colleges but on opening institutes that will produce professionals. We have already started working in this direction,8221; he claims.

Himachal Pradesh has now passed a Private Universities Establishment and Regulations Act 2006, opening the doors for new professional institutes and universities. 8216;8216;A committee has held detailed consultations with the representatives of the industry. The demand of the industry has been assessed and steps are underway to produce sufficient number of professionals8221;, says B.S.Nainta, Director Industries.

But the industrialists are beginning to get impatient.