Bengal to open ITI institutes

Kolkata: West Bengal government was open to tying up with private partners for developing institutes like existing industrial training institutes (ITIs) for creating skilled manpower for the textiles industry.

The government was in talks with Jadavpur University and Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) to churn out more textile engineers for the sector, said Manab Mukherjee, state small industries and textiles minister.

The discussions were at a nascent stage now.

West Bengal aimed to impart need-based training in the sector to 50,000 youths by 2012.

This apart, the state government was also planning to set up an exclusive export hub for textiles over 1 acre at Rajarhat.

The office of the textile commissioner was the nodal agency for the project and it already had the land in possession from Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO).

Buyer-seller meets would be organised to showcase products to exporters besides having a dedicated exhibition area, said Manoj Pant, the state textile commissioner.

The blueprint of the project was under process but funding options were yet to be finalised, Pant added.

The Powerloom Development & Export Promotion Council (Pdexcil) was coming up with a regional office in Kolkata and was keen to work with the state government for training personnel in the sector, M S Mathivanan, chairman of Pdexcil said.

It now had around 10-15 members from the state and wanted to take it up to 100 within the next one month, said S N Gupta, vice-chairman of the council. Pdexcil was in talks with the state government to help in the installation of 20,000 powerlooms in the state as was laid out by the New Textile Policy of West Bengal announced in January 2008.

The textile industry contributed to around 14 per cent of industrial production in the country and 15.4 per cent of the net export earnings employing around 35 million people directly.