Lok Satta demands one ITI for each mandal

The Lok Satta Party today demanded that the Government set up one ITI (industrial training institute) in each mandal of the State considering the growing need for skilled technicians in a host of sectors like oil and gas, power, construction, telecom, textiles and agriculture.

The opening of ITIs will help hundreds of thousands of youth get remunerative employment and provide a reservoir of trained personnel to industry.

Talking to the media, party spokesmen Katari Srinivasa Rao, E. Chennaiah welcomed the statement of the Union Deputy Minister for Planning Parliamentary Affairs to modernize existing ITIs and set up new ones. They said that the ITIs would also help arrest the migration of youth from rural areas in search of livelihood. The Lok Satta Party, they recalled, had been advocating the creation of over 1000 new towns to serve as hubs of growth. The new ITIs would be pivotal in giving shape to the new growth centers.

India could reap its demographic advantage only if the youth were provided technical skills. Only five percent of the youth in India had technical skills in against 95 percent in Korea and 22 percent in an African country like Botswana. While China boasted of 500,000 technical institutes, India had only one-fifth of them.

The party leaders underlined that the agriculture sector in Andhra Pradesh could be bailed out of the present crisis if farmers were provided inputs and technology. The ITIs could impart training to youth in making available latest technologies to farmers.