IPF park to have training unit

Indian Plastic Federation (IPF) is aiming to meet the growing manpower demands of the plastic industry through its upcoming training, research and development facility, at Sankrail polypark.

Spread over one acre inside the 70 acre poly park at Sankrail, the training and R&D facility would cost Rs 10 crore, entirely funded by IPF.

The aim is to provide practical training to youth, said K K Seksaria, president, IPF.

Local units were largely using skilled labourers at high cost from other states.

Seksaria pointed out that on average, each plastic processing unit at the Sankrail polypark would require 150 labourers and hence the 36 units located in the park would require close to 5,400 people.

The polypark could be expanded to 143 units and IPF has approached the state for land based on 143 letters of intent. Manpower requirement would then increase to 15,000 to 20,000.

Of this, 30-40 per cent would be skilled, for technical processes like extrusion and blow moulding, while another 30 per cent would be semi-skilled.

Courses offered would cover processing to operator and manager level courses.

For training, IPF was in talks with universities like Jadavpur University, industry experts and academicians.

The course fees would be subsidized so that the rural youth could join, said Seksaria.

The land formalities were expected to be completed shortly and construction would commence by 2009, to be made operational within 2010.

IPF would train more than 1,000 in the first year before raising capacity.

The booming plastic industry was facing skilled manpower shortage.

In 2006, production and consumption of plastic in India was six million ton.

The industry was growing at close to 14 per cent thanks to a production and consumption boom, boosting requirement for skilled manpower.

IPF on behalf of Plast India had applied to the central government seeking to adopt six Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in Maharashtra for sector specific training and research facility.

Plastic and polymer industry in India was roughly worth Rs 72,000 crore at present, employing 38 lakh across 60,000 odd units.