UK-India trade body sets up institute of engineers in Pune

The UK government has been strengthening its trade relations with India across levels, from education to business tie ups and skill development programmes. In a recent foray, the UK Trade and Investment for India announced to set up a Centre of Institution of Mechanical Engineers in Pune.

Membership to the centre will be given to working engineers where they will be getting hands on training.

“UK has a very strong relationship with Pune. Nearly 120 companies have a joint venture in Pune. In terms of expanding our relations with the city, we have three sectors on agenda, which are automobile, IT and education. As a part of our agenda, we have set up a centre of Institution of Engineers in Pune. It is a professional skills institution,” said Kumar Iyer, British Deputy High Commissioner for Western India and Director General for UK Trade and Investment for India.

According to Iyer, UK-India is now the fastest growing bilateral research partnership for the UK. Jointly funded programmes have broken through the 150 million barrier, up from one million four years ago.

The British Council has trained one million English language teachers and has reached over 17 million Indians. UK government is planning a visa processing with ‘passport pass back’ facility in which an applicant will get back his passport shortly after submission once the necessary scrutiny is over and the rest of the visa processing will continue, he said. It will help the applicant to get its passport before the visa is processed.

There are 30,000 students from India studying in the UK. Also, the UK government has set up new rules for working students after completing education and now students can extend their visa to be able to work in areas related with their academic programme which has to be a graduate programme.

“The government has also modified the rules about work opportunities for students after completing education and now students can extend their visa to be able to work in areas related with their academic programme which has to be a graduate programme, Iyer said.

In terms of India’s contrbution to UK trade, there are over 1,000 Indian companies in UK. The country plans to double its trade with India by 2015 from pound 15.4 billion to 23 billion. Tata is the largest manufacturing employer in UK at 45,000 headcount. More Indian investment comes to UK than rest of EU combined.