India-Japan PM summit: India to announce major skill development initiatives for Japan
India may commit to producing 5000 skilled manpower annually in various job roles for Japanese industry and allied sectors, both for domestic and overseas demand.
ACN EXCLUSIVE:
NEW DELHI: Even though the exchange of views on regional and global issues of mutual interests including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the relationship with China is expected to figure prominently in the discussions between the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Saturday, the issue of developing India as a major source of skilled manpower for Japan is also likely to come up.
During the 2-day visit of the Japanese PM starting Saturday on March 19, India may announce its key initiatives to promote its skilled development programmes such as Technical Training Intern Programme (TITP), Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) scheme, others and also measures to boost exports of skilled manpower to Japan.
According to highly placed sources, India may announce to fix scale for Japan annually and will attempt to produce about 5000 skilled manpower every year for the Japanese industry in various job roles for sending them to Japan, while some of these may be absorbed domestically by the Japanese industrial units and their allied units in India.
With the Japanese PM’s visit in mind, the Ministry of external affairs was in regular touch with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) for the past over a month and was preparing to discuss key measures to promote skill development initiatives with special regard to meet the demand from Japan.
As per the MSDE plans to promote skill development programmes for the Japanese industry, the four schemes, such as TITP, SSW, JIM (Japan-India Institute of Manufacturing), and JEC (Japan Endowment Courses) would be brought together to produce about 5000 skilled workers annually for the Japanese industry. Some of these trained workers would go to Japan under TITP and SSW while others are targeted to be absorbed domestically by the Japanese firms in India.
The ministry plans to produce 1500 skilled manpower under TITP and SSW each, around 1000 under JIM and JEC each annually.
As part of its new initiatives, it also plans to station some dedicated officials in the Indian embassy in Japan.
Related article: Japan to reduce dependency on ASEAN for skilled workers, looking towards India
Ministry is attempting to set the scale as it says it has understood the market of Japan very well.
Also for social transformation and advocacy for skill development, it is making customised videos involving experiences of the Indian youths who have returned from Japan and want to share their experiences with others to motivate them to go to Japan.
These promotional videos will carry the testimonials of the youths at the training facilities including best practices here to be shared in Japan, on social media platforms.
Related article: NAVIS dispatches a batch of 15 skilled nurses to Japan under TITP, targets to send 400 trainees a year
Till now, India has been able to send a total of 238 skilled manpower to Japan under TITP and newly introduced SSW ever since the MSDE’s National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) started this initiative in 2019. However, the following two years 2020 and 2021 were marked with Covid pandemic induced lockdown and restrictions slowing down the skill development initiatives and bringing them to almost halt.
Recently, the movement of skilled manpower has started to happen as one of the sending organisations NAVIS recently sent a batch of 15 trained nurses to Japan under TITP.
