Digitising all the employment exchanges of Bihar is one of the targets the State Government has achieved to help both the unemployed youth and employers, stresses S Siddharth, Secretary, Labour Resources Department, Government of Bihar, in an interaction with Nirav Soni of Elets News Network (ENN)
Please give us a brief about the activities of the Labour Resources Department.
Our Department mainly focuses on facilitating equal wages for all workers, irrespective of their gender, and gratuity to employees in the organised sector. The Department also provides conciliation between the management and workers under the Industrial Disputes Act. We have various Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) for skill development and a wing, namely Bihar Skill Development Mission (BSDM), as a nodal organisation for properly developing the skills of the people of the State.
The Labour Resources Department has another wing – the Department of Employment and Training, which boasts of a number of employment exchanges as guidance centres for the unemployed youth. It also organises job fairs from time to time to help them.
What are the various ICT initiatives that your Department has undertaken?
Making all the employment exchanges electronic is the very first thing we have done. The step was taken, so that people could register themselves and employers could see the list of candidates electronically.
Secondly, we are working on a system that would act as a “service portal”. This would be a portal for all those people who are qualified, and are working in Bihar as well as outside the State. In case, someone gets into some problem or faces any other issue during employment relating to certificates, or passport, the employer/ employee concerned can get in touch with us through this portal and request for the service required.
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Thirdly, we are also in the process of mapping all the skill sets that would be required by potential employers. We would be working towards providing those skill sets by acting as a co-ordinating and channelising agency between the employer and the skilled people.
How has the Labour Resources Department been contributing to skill development activities in Bihar?
The Bihar Skill Development Mission is a dedicated department that deals with the training part. BSDM co-ordinates with the departments having requirement of various skills, and works on developing the skill sets in the employees as desired by the employer. We have a target of training some 1 crore people in the next five years, especially in the area of IT skill sets. We are tying up with external agencies and setting up a Project Management Unit to continuously monitor the progress.
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What is the structure of Industrial Training Institutes in Bihar?
The entire ITI structure comes under the direct monitoring of the Central Government and it is still the affiliating body. The examination is also centralised for all ITIs across India. The ITIs in Bihar will have to follow the standards that were laid down by the Union Labour Department. However, we are in the process of setting up 25 Centres of Excellence (CoEs) that will include high- tech infrastructure facility in all sectors, like Automobile, Information Technology and others.
Please tell us more about the Centres of Excellence venture.
The main objective of the venture is to upgrade ITIs into Centres of Excellence for producing multi-skilled workforce of global standard by introduction of new multi-skilling modular courses, in line with the needs of industry, to provide employable skills. We will be adopting new training technology with close involvement of industry and other stakeholders for better planning and implementation of training programmes. We would be empowering these Centres by providing sufficient autonomy in academic, administrative, financial and management matters. We are also building partnership with the industries close by and setting up Institute Management Committees (IMCs) to make training wholly demand driven.
We have a target of training some 1 crore people in the next five years, especially in the area of IT skill sets. We are tying up with external agencies and making a Project Management Unit to continuously monitor the progress
The Centres of Excellence (CoE) will work as a hub to focus on specialised vocational training across a range of new and traditional occupation and will be innovative in delivering training, so that employability, including selfemployment, increases. Besides, it will also simultaneously fulfil the requirements of the industry, and contribute towards overall productivity enhancement.