HCL plans career development centres

In a bid to meet the demand of industry ready ICT (Information, Communication, Telecom) professionals, HCL Infosystems Ltd plans to open 100 HCL Career Development Centre (CDC) across the country in the next one year.

In the northern region, including Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, the company will open 5-6 centres by the end of this fiscal year. It inaugrated its HCL CDC centre in Chandigarh today.

The company has fully-operational HCL CDCs in 30 cities across the country and plans to set up similar centres overseas as well. Through these centres, the company would provide specially-designed courses to groom students, turning them into industry-ready professionals.

Speaking to Business Standard, Executive Vice-President Rajendra Kumar said, "The IT boom in the country has caused a severe shortage of skilled ICT engineers. At present, there is a shortage of 2 lakh networking professionals in the industry. So, to meet the increasing demand for skilled professionals, we ventured into the field of IT career development. The courses have been designed keeping in mind the specific needs of modern day organisations."

Currently, the students do not have the capabilities to lead edge technologies, which is critical to build the ICT infrastructure in the country. It is estimated, presently, the Indian ICT market is over Rs 84,000 crore, out of which 60-70 per cent is hardware and infrastructure software.

He further added, "A study by Cisco IDC estimates that one third of companies' demand for networking professionals remains unfulfilled. Also, according to an estimate by E-Value, around 2 lakh networking professionals are demanded annually in the country while the supply is limited to about 60 per cent of the demand. The deficit is further estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21 per cent till 2010."

About the expansion plans he said, "We will open 5-6 centres in the northern region (Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh). Soon we will be setting up centres in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Ambala, Patiala along with the expansion in other cities of Punjab and Haryana as well." He further added that most of the centres would be on franchise model.

He said the proposal had received overwhelming response from students eager to make a rewarding career in the IT industry.