The Southern Region (SR) of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will focus on skill development in other priority areas, in the next one year, in order to support industrial growth in the region. “We will continue to track the gap between what the needs are and what is being done and try and make sure that the gaps are bridged,” said Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu, the newly elected Chairman of CII SR, here.
Skill mapping studies
As part of its plans, CII SR will embark on skill mapping studies on specific sectors, including labour-intensive ones, basically to bridge the demand-supply gap. In the past, it had done such skill mapping studies on automobiles and ancillaries. The Model Career Centre (MCC) in Chennai provides career counselling, skill training, and assessment thereby facilitating employment for youth. Over 12,000 candidates are to be placed through MCC, Job fair in tier II cities in this year, he said. Jayavarthanavelu also said the industry body had been working closely with the State governments to come out with sector-specific policies to promote manufacturing. In this direction, it is pushing for an IT hardware policy in Tamil Nadu CII is also working with Southern State governments for the Startup Policy as South India has a rich ecosystem to nurture start-up companies and emerging entrepreneurs. Outlining CII-SR’s priority areas for 2019-20, he said it had chosen ’Competitiveness of South India Inc’ as its theme for the fiscal.
Focus areas
Policy advocacy, ease of doing business, education & skill development, entrepreneurship, start-ups, MSMEs and membership engagement will be the key focus areas under the theme. More attention would be given to advisory services on IPR, capacity building programmes for MSMEs and creating B2B platforms for major initiatives during this year. He said CII is also working with State governments and industry in the rejuvenation of lakes and water bodies in Southern States. This initiative will be rolled out this year under phase II of the programme.
