Telangana youth showcases skill on global platform

Hyderabad: 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 of age 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 represented India in Brazil from August 11 to 15, carrying a lot of confidence owing to their Bronze Medal winning performance in New Zealand earlier. Parshuram is from a small village called Nagasar of Telangana’s Mahabubnagar district. He is a trainee of Kushal who is an expert in Bricklaying.

Kushal is a social enterprise, a project for up skilling and training construction workforce which is a joint initiative CREDAI Pune Metro with NSDC (National Skill Development Corporation). Started four years ago and having already trained 20,000 construction workers, it 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.

He says, ‘The school in my village is only till 5thstandard and for further education you need to travel for 60kms. My family consists of my parents, one sister and one brother. My father is in the construction business since 30 years and he visits our village whenever he gets time. I came to Pune because of my dad and started helping him in his work.

I am training with Kushal from the past 4 years and in these 4 years I have got to learn a lot from my coaches. My family is very proud of me. Though I am less educated, one day I will become a big builder by working hard.’ 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 is also one of the most unorganized sectors in India and faces huge shortage of skilled workers on the construction sites. The biggest difference is, that in the west or developed nations there is institutionalised approach towards skills and skills training.

On the contrary skill training is a neglected sector within India, which is getting prominence, importance and government support owing to current government’s ‘Skill India’& ‘Make In India’ campaigns which will go hand-in-hand. The percentage of skilled workers in India is just above 3% as compared to China, Korea and Japan which is more than 75%.

In the next 5 years, Kushal is aiming to train 43,000 workers and it shall be taking its training pan-India in a big way through CREDAI chapters. Subsequently, Kushal is to train 80,000 workers in next 9 years and then target is to train 1 lakh workers in 12 years.