Ramadorai building TCS-like think-tank team at NSDC

Like in the case of a 'think tank' he had set up in India’s largest software company TCS, Subramaniam Ramadorai, adviser to the Prime Minister in the National Skill Development Council (NSDC), is building up a 10-member team in NSDC.

“I am building a team. The team will have 10 of us from diverse fields and various specialisations. Some of them will have grassroots-level experience while some will have a huge experience in the private sector. Some of them come as interns from abroad (Indians). We are providing all the flexibility to make sure that the team is a very good one with a lot of passion for skill development,” he told Business Standard.

Ramadorai, who headed TCS for 13 years, was here recently for the launch of his book, ‘The TCS Story...and Beyond’. He mentioned in the book that in the late 1990s a corporate think tank comprising 6-7 members was set up in TCS. The team used to meet at least once in a week regularly, often on a Saturday or a Sunday.

“That is where we did most of our thinking – friends sitting around discussing the world in an informal atmosphere...”, he stated adding that during the sessions he kept everyone to think about what was needed next to move the company forward.

Though Ramadorai says meetings would not be the same like in the TCS, the NSDC team is expected to explore how to achieve the target of generating 500 million skilled labour by 2022 and creation of 15-18 million jobs every year to employ them.

“What is required? How many educational institutions are needed? How many ITIs have to be made available? How is technology going to play a critical role? How to use the existing infrastructure like government schools? That is what we want to go into. It is a journey, not a formula,” he said.

Ramadorai said the focus would be on sectors like construction, tourism, hospitality, healthcare, retail, IT and ITeS and manufacturing which have huge potential to generate employment.

He said that the apex policy-making body regarding skill development was also exploring the possibilities of having a vocational university within a general university or having country-to-country collaboration in vocational education so as to bring foreign capabilities to skill the teachers and set up centres of excellence.

According to Ramadorai, nearly 17 ministries are currently involved in skill development. Though there will be a target for each ministry, it will be outcome-based targets rather than just numbers. “If a person is skilled, he should be able to get a job. Simply saying I have trained a million people but of this 999,000 are not having a job amounts to failure,” he added.