'Revival is happening slowly.'
'But that is, if the pandemic is controlled.'
IMAGE:
A M Naik, group chairman, larsen and Toubro. Photograph: PTI Photo
Anil Manibhai Naik, group chairman, Larsen and Toubro and chairman of the National Skill
Development Corporation, acknowledges realising Prime Minister Narendra
Damodardas Modi's vision of making India the skill capital of the world will
not be easy.
But he is undeterred by the
challenge.
In a video call, Naik, who
will be 79 on June 9, tells Surajeet Das Gupta about his areas
of focus in skilling, how to raise more funds for the sector, the poor
qualifying requirement for big contracts, and the economy after the pandemic.
What
do you think is the key challenge in skill development? Industry has complained
there is no dearth of manpower, but people are not skilled enough to be
employable.
Have public-private
partnerships not taken off?
Large
industries do not have to collaborate with the NSDC or government organisations
because they have created training centres.
Small
and mid-scale industries, which cannot afford that kind of infrastructure, need
skilled manpower.
To give you an example,
L&T has nine regional centres for just construction skilling.
Training is the backbone of
the company and that is why we are ahead of competition.
But for good, skilled
manpower, you need good teachers and trainers.
And apart from traditional
skills, they need knowledge of digital stuff such as automation.
I don't think even 10 per
cent of the trainers have these skills.
The problem is that 90 per
cent of the workers are in the unorganised sector and the employers don't know
much about digital training and pursuing high quality.
So how do you address the
requirement of training?
L&T is making a
beginning. We are setting up our first training institute in Maharashtra.
It will train 800-2,000
people. Our plan is to set up more such institutes in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu,
creating a capacity to train 3,000 annually.
But that is nothing
compared to the requirement. Have you made an assessment of how many trainers
and master trainers you require to train?
If you want to train 10
million apprentices a year, for every 10 people you need one trainer.
You need a minimum of
500,000 good trainers, even at a ratio of one trainer to 20 apprentices. It is
a mammoth task.
This will require a lot of
money. Where will that come from? Skilling needs large funds from the
government.
It is the responsibility
NSDC has to take and the government has to invest.
I have written to the
government, saying that only 10 per cent of the mandatory CSR contribution of 2
per cent of the profits of companies should be earmarked for skill development.
This means just 0.2 per
cent of the profits. That is what will be required if we want India to become
the skill capital of the world. But you know how everything works.
Has the pandemic led to a
reassessment of how we see and deal with labour, especially with the huge
migration that happened?
In L&T we have more
than 400,000 workers in construction alone.
Of those, 149,000 remained
with us. We provide them food, shelter, health care, etc; 250,000 workers went
to their states for six to eight months, which is the delay our projects have
suffered.
But we have made up for
most of the lost time and are more on schedule than our competitors.
The poor qualification
requirement in many large projects in India has affected quality. But it has
ensured you do not need to hire skilled workers. Is there any learning from it?
The problem is the
qualification criteria contractors set.
The criteria should be like
those in global contracts.
That is why we don't see
many contractors getting a lot of business in West Asia, because to qualify
there you need highly skilled workers.
Why is that so?
In India companies get
qualified for large projects like those in hydrocarbon even if they have not done
a single one in that space.
The same goes for big
tunnel projects. That is why about 86 road contracts, worth Rs 2.5 lakh-Rs 3
lakh (Rs 250,000 to Rs 300,000), have been abandoned.
Does the qualification
required follow international requirements? You need to investigate.
Are order books and
businesses improving in your line of activities?
Revival is happening slowly
and we think next financial year will be much better.
But that is, if the
pandemic is controlled, especially as cases are suddenly going up in states
like Maharashtra.
If this sort of thing keeps
happening, the rate of growth will be hampered.
On orders I can tell you
they are improving.