Students undergo training at ATDC.

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 1: The Apparel Training and Design Centre (ATDC) added one more centre in the state today. The new centre was opened in Baripada.

Established under the aegis of Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), ministry of textiles, the institute has been training people to work in various sectors of the garment industry.

The Baripada centre is the sixth in the state. The main centre was established by ATDC in the capital in 2007. Similar centres were then launched in Berhampur, Rourkela, Cuttack, and Sambalpur as satellite skill development projects (SSDP). Two short-term skill camps are also functioning in Koraput and Kandhamal.

The centre will offer courses on apparel manufacturing technology, fashion design technology, production supervision and quality control and apparel pattern-making as six-month courses.

Short duration programs on industrial sewing machine operation, computer-aided designing and industrial machine mechanism have also been planned.

“The new centre will initially run three batches a day. There will be 30 students in each batch. The students will also be guaranteed placements after successfully completing their training. Hostel facilities will also be provided,” said Lopamudra Das Ghosh, principal, ATDC Bhubaneswar.

“The ATDC SSDP centre in Baripada has been actively supported by the district administration. Initially, 3,780 students have been selected from the employment mission job fair and will be sponsored by the district rural development agency and the integrated tribal development agency,” Ghosh said.

The SSDP centres in Orissa had been conceived as per a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the state government and AEPC.

Till date, more than 1,000 students have completed training from different ATDC centres in Orissa. They have been placed in companies like Arvind, Shahi, Victus etc. across the country.

“These are training centres with a difference. Just a month’s exhaustive training on most sophisticated imported sewing machines and 100% chance of earning Rs4000 to Rs6000 per month even for a class V pass school dropout.Textiles and clothing sector is the second largest employment generator and there are ample job opportunities in Indian garment industry to the tune of 12 million extra jobs till 2015,”said the principal.

Students with entrepreneurial qualities have started their own setups and became economically independent, the principal informed. Besides the courses offered ATDC also runs diploma programs in collaboration with IGNOU at the ATDC IGNOU Community College, Bhubaneswar.