Lok Sabha Question No. 4369 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2018-03-21
Subject: Shortage of Skilled Manpower
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: NISHIKANT  DUBEY, RAJESH PANDEY

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4369

TO BE ANSWERED ON 21.03.2018

## SHORTAGE OF SKILLED MANPOWER

## 4369. SHRI NISHIKANT DUBEY: SHRI RAJESH PANDEY:

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

(a)  whether  there  is  considerable  shortage  of  skilled  manpower  in  the  Information Technology (IT) sector;

(b) if so, the details thereof and the steps taken by the Government in this regard;

(c)  whether  the  Government  has  made  any  assessment  and  planning  for  immediate requirement  of  manpower  in  the  IT  sector  due  to  Digital  India  Programme  and  online transactions and advent of more software related programmes; and

(d) if so, the details thereof and the skill development training proposed to be given to the educated youth in the country?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI K.J. ALPHONS)

(a)  to  (d):    As  per  NASSCOM,  Indian  Information  Technology  -  Business  Process Management (IT-BPM) Industry continued to be a net hirer with an addition of 1,70,000 new jobs with a total employee base of around 3.9 million in the Year 2016-17. However, speedy adoption of  automation and emerging technologies are affecting some jobs  and new jobs which are being created require newer skill-sets.

The Government of India and Indian IT-BPM Industry are increasingly looking at new skill-sets and subject matter experts to continue on the evolution growth path. New job roles in the areas such as Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, Data Science, Mobile App development, etc are evolving, which is giving rise to a new breed of domain experts. It is also indicated that with changing paradigms of talent deployment, re-skilling of employees is becoming the key agenda for IT Industry.

Various initiatives of Government of India such as Digital India covering e-Government Services,  Common  Service  Centres, BPO  Promotion  Schemes,  Digital  Payments, Electronic Manufacturing, and Digital Saksharta Abhiyaan; e-Commerce, GST Network, Make in  India,  Start-up  India,  e-Health,  Smart  Cities,  and  e-Agriculture  Market  Place/

Digital Mandis, etc are creating new job opportunities. These initiatives coupled with new and emerging technologies are creating IT and Electronics led new job opportunities in both traditional as well as new sectors of the economy such as Transport, Health, Power, Agriculture, and Tourism.

According to NASSCOM, it is estimated that the IT-BPM sector would continue to hire at a rate of 3% to 3.5% year-on-year by 2022. NASSCOM also indicates that many firms have already established dedicated programs to re-skill their existing employees.

Government of India has setup various Sector Skill Councils (SSC) including NASSCOM IT-ITeS  SSC  to  address  the  requirement  of  present  and  future  skills  and  job  roles  by covering developing job standards, training content, Faculty &  student training, Assessments and certification, etc.

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NASSCOM,  to collaborate and strengthen their cooperation in the field  of  skill  development  particularly  with  respect  to the  re-skilling and up-skilling imperative in areas of new and emerging technologies, with Government acting as an enabler/facilitator. A future skills platform for Business to Business (B2B) skilling (http://futureskills.nasscom.in/) has been launched by NASSCOM.

In addition, MeitY takes up several capacity building activities to ensure availability of trained  human resources for the manufacturing & service sectors of Electronics and  IT industry. Various schemes/activities pertaining to Human Resource Development for IT sector are as under:-

- i. National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT), an Autonomous  Scientific  Society  under  MeitY,  is  engaged  both  in  Formal  &  NonFormal Education in the area of IECT through its own centres located at 40 locations and 700+ accredited centres  spread  across  the  country.  NIELIT  through  its  various courses have trained a cumulative 5.50 Lakh number of candidates out of which 3.49 Lakh candidates are certified during April, 2017 to January, 2018.
- ii.  Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), a R&D organization of the  MeitY,  has  enrolled  3485  candidates  out  of  which  2918  candidates  have completed the training during April, 2017 to September, 2017.
- iii.  Visvesvaraya  PhD Scheme for Electronics and  IT which provides support for 3000 PhDs  (1000  Full-Time  &  2000  part-Time),  to  promote  research,  innovation  and development of new products. So far, a total of 1153 PhD (970 full time + 183 part time) candidates have been enrolled at various institutes.
- iv.  Scheme  of  Financial  Assistance  for  setting  up  of  Electronics  and  ICT  Academies, under which Seven Academies have been setup for faculty development to improve the employability of the graduates/diploma holders. So far, 13,220 participants have been trained under 347 Faculty Development Programs (FDPs).
- v. Information Security Education and Awareness (ISEA) Project Phase-II is aimed at capacity  building  in  Information  Security,  training  of  Government  personnel  and creation of mass Information Security awareness. So far, 28,069 candidates are undergoing training/trained in various formal/non-formal programs at 52 institutions, 4,457 Government  officials  have  been  trained  and  606  awareness  workshops  have  been conducted covering 65,342 participants.

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