Textile firms turn to ITIs for skilled hands

Despite the current boom, the textile industry in the region is jolted by skilled manpower crunch.

The apex textile bodies and organisations are now looking to the technical training institutes to get skilled hands for the industry.

The Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) has been holding talks with the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in Trichy, Madurai, Dharmapuri, Tirunelveli and Krishnagiri to offer short-term courses on tailoring or garmenting, to interested candidates.

The association would provide the machinery and expertise and the ITIs are expected to provide the infrastructural support. This is likely to materialise in the next academic year.

The South India Small Spinners' Association (Sisspa) also has been pitching in for such tie-ups. A few weeks ago, the Coimbatore district administration held talks with the members of the association to offer a 15-acre land on the Mettupalayam Road on the outskirts of the city, to set up an industrial training institute.

Spinning sources told Business Standard that they were in talks with some of the stakeholders of the industry to provide machinery and other infrastructure to the interested labourers.

They are also planning to request the state government to introduce textile training courses in government-aided arts and science colleges across the state.

Going by the current level of capacity expansion taking place in the textile industry, the annual demand for skilled workers is estimated to be between 25,000 and 30,000.

However, given the low productivity of the existing labour, the units that are in expansion mode, are compelled to take the training of workers rather seriously.