The Indian Institute of Technology alumni is planning to create a new fund to support its various social projects. The projects are expected to create job opportunities for rural youth and transform India's Industrial Training Institutes.
Ashank Desai, chairman, Pan IIT Alumni (the alumni association) and founder Mastek Ltd said currently the association had 175,000 members from various IITs. The Pan IIT Alumni has initiated three important projects that include 'Indo-US collaboration for Engineering Education' (IUCEE), 'IITians for ITIs' and 'Reach 4 India'. The projects would be funded by the government, the corporations and the and IIT alumni.
The IUCEE is an initiative to improve the quality of faculty in non-IIT colleges and institutions. Around 50 professors from the US would come to India every year to train 500 faculty members who , in turn, would train 10 more faculty members. Over the next five years 80,000 faculty members would be trained through this initiative across the country, said Desai.
The Reach 4 India project has been launched to create more jobs and entrepreneurs in the rural parts of the country, said Desai. A welding training school and a driving school has been set up in Chennai and near Jaipur, respectively, as pilot projects.
Currently, 50 students, in each school, are taking up soft and technical skill training. In the coming months another 18 schools will be opened with an investment of around Rs 2-3 crore (Rs 20-30 million).
Ashok Kalbag, secretary general, Pan IIT Alumni, added that the alumni group has initiated a pilot project 'Rural Business Hub' at Yavatmal in Maharastra, which is famous for cotton cultivation, in association with the Ministry of Panchyati Raj. Under the project, three panchayats had been short-listed for setting up five mini cotton mills. Based on the success, the project will be replicated in various villages across the country, said Kalbag.
Ranjan Kumar, coordinator (India), IITians for ITIs project said the project was initiated by IIT alumni in association with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII's) Southern Region and academia to push for sustainable excellence in technical/vocational training in India by creating institutions similar to the IITs, but focused on vocational education and highly-skilled workers.
As part of the phase I, over the next two years, around 40,000 students will be trained from around 300 government ITI institutes. In has also decided to set up a 24X7 call centre in one of the southern states to connect the workers with the experts and the industry.
He noted, there are around 1,396 government-run ITIs and 3,700 private-run ITIs across the country. In a phased manner these ITIs will also be roped in. Kumar said the government has allocated Rs 2.5 crore (Rs 25 million) to each ITI.
