NEED FOR A NATIONAL DATABASE OF TECHNICAL MANPOWER
QUEST FOR AN ATMANIRBHAR BHARAT
India has embarked on an ambitious quest of becoming an international manufacturing hub in its quest for becoming self reliant. The Make in India initiative aims at increasing manufacturing sector’s growth rate, creating millions of manufacturing jobs and increasing sector’s contribution to GDP. This requires infusion of large capital, acquisition of land, technology and suitable human resources. While the Govt and Industry are involved in planning and acquisition of the first three factors, an equally important factor is the Human Resource, especially technical. In any new venture, recruitment of appropriate technical manpower is crucial to the success of the project. The requisite technical skill sets required may or may not be available within the country. However, of greater concern is the fact that the technical skill sets which are available but not visible to the entrepreneur, leading to sub optimal hiring and consequential redevelopment/reskilling costs. It is felt that an MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) technical manpower data base, created at the national level, can effectively plug this gap.
Accordingly, it is felt that an MRO Data Base Association (MDA) needs to be established at the national level. It can be a Not for Profit Association which would be the apex body for maintaining HR data base of all technically qualified personnel (Diploma, Graduate, Post Graduate or Super Specialist level) for their judicious utilization by various national bodies/industries/enterprises etc. The MDA can play a proactive role as a catalyst for the growth of all technical personnel as also facilitate the industry, public as well as private sector, to pick the right man for the right job. Once stabilised, it can catalyse the quest of Indian Industry towards self reliance and give a fillip to the national drive towards Atma Nirbhar Bharat.
The MDA can work closely with Govt of India, Industry Associations like CII/FICCI/ASSOCHAM, MRO organisations, other non profit organisations, as also experts from Defence, Aviation, Railways and academia, to maximise the national manufacturing capabilities. It is pertinent to note that skills of tens of thousands of highly trained, technical and disciplined personnel from the three Services (Defence) are lost in the anonymity of early retirement every year. Most of them have operated and sustained state of the art cutting edge technologies and their expertise can be gainfully leveraged by the manufacturing and MRO industries, who have a huge role in defence production and indigenization. Besides there are thousands of experienced, highly trained technical personnel from aviation MRO and industry, railways, shipping, transport and other technical organisations who wish to relocate or switch jobs in the same or different sector of economy. The MDA can be the link between such technically qualified and experienced individuals and the industry.
The MDA can facilitate the following :-
- Generation of employment opportunities for technical personnel.
- Certification of technical personnel.
- Technical Education, Training and Skill Development.
- Induction of Emerging Technologies.
- Innovation and Indigenisation.
- Formulation of proposed Public Policies in the Technology domain
- Platform for effective Govt – Industry dialogue in the fields of HR and Technology
- On Boarding of MSMEs.
- Counselling Services
- Opportunity Alerts
The MDA can be organised into different technological verticals, ie Electrical, Electronics, Mechanical, Aerospace, Marine, Optical etc with emphasis on Automation, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and other emerging technologies. It can also have separate division devoted to Process Experts like Business Process Engineering, Systems Design, Enterprise Resource Planning, Innovation, Indigenisation etc. It will also have a separate section for overseas Indian experts who want to be part of India’s growth story but are apprehensive of opportunities and the business environment in India. For each of these verticals/divisions, the MDA will have to devise standards for different levels of technical personnel and those who meet these standards can be registered with it. All processes, evaluations and certifications are envisaged to be on line.
As part of Make in India and Atma Nirbhar Bharat initiative, objective is to make India a global Design and Manufacturing hub. This will require concerted efforts in all domains, including Human Resources. The existing void of a national data base of highly skilled technical personnel, who can prove to be a force multiplier in our quest of self reliance, needs to be filled at the earliest. It is here that the MDA can play an invaluable role in not only identifying technical experts in India with unique skill sets but also Indians abroad who wish to relocate and be part of the India growth story. In due course of time, it can establish linkages with international counterparts with a view to accelerate the process of getting the best possible human capital relocated, thus providing further impetus to emergence of a confident, self reliant nation.
