Chief secretary BK Patnaik with an awardee at the Skill Odisha Summit in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, May 11: Employment exchange centres in the state will soon double as career guidance hubs.

“Youths who register at the employment exchange will be screened. Depending on their skill sets and interest areas, the officials will counsel them as to where they would fit in best. The candidates will also be informed about the nearest training centres where they can take up related skill training. They can be sent to Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) or Industrial Training Centres (ITC) or be informed about vocational training programmes going on near where they stay so that they can receive professional training,” said chief secretary B.K. Patnaik.

He was speaking at the Skill Odisha Summit jointly organised by the State Employment Mission and the Confederation of Indian Industries. The state has 80 employment exchange centres.

“Youths in remote villages who drop out after class VII and VIII are unaware that even they can be decently employed provided they take up the right profession and train themselves accordingly. It is here that the employment exchanges will help them out,” said secretary, employment and technical education and training department, C.S. Kumar.

Having set the target of training one million youths in various employable skills in the coming five years, the department is also set to form a central placement cell to help the trained youths find suitable placements.

“This apart, five new ITIs will be added to the existing 26 ITIs. The government has also granted permission for setting up 37 more ITCs by various private players. Twenty-two new polytechnics have been approved for the state,” Kumar said.

Dilip Chenoy, managing director and CEO of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), said that besides the traditional sectors such as agriculture and construction in which a lot of youths can be trained, there were lots of opportunity for gainful employment in the sectors of banking and finance, IT and ITES, manufacturing, steel, retail, apparel, textiles, gems and jewellery and hospitality. NSDC would soon conduct a survey on the skill gap in Odisha, he said.

Several speakers highlighted agriculture as a potential employer, saying that there were vast prospects in this field. Speakers also said there was an urgent need to revisit the course curriculum and tune it to suit the needs of the industry.

A paper defining the road map for skill development for the state was released on the occasion and youths who had been successfully placed after skill training were felicitated.