SHILLONG, MAR 26: The Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in Meghalaya is in a sorry state of affairs as they continue to suffer from several discrepancies defeating the objective of its setting up.
The ITIs were set up with the objective of imparting industrial training to the less privileged, poor and downtrodden school-leaving youth so that they acquire technical skills for gainful employment and ensure steady flow of skilled workers in different trades.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in its report however revealed “this objective remained largely unachieved”.
It stated that over 63 per cent passed out trainees remained without employment due to failure to have placement cell in the existing ITIs to assist them in obtaining employment.
At present, there are only ten ITIs despite of the Eleventh Five Year Plan (XI FYP) 2007-12 envisaged on having a pool of 13 ITIs in Meghalaya.
While during 2006-07 the state had only eight ITIs, only two new ITIs at Sohra (April 2010) and Resubelpara (April 2011) were opened during XI FYP. Therefore, the state had failed to achieve the target of XI FYP till date.
As per the report, the ten ITIs in the state train nearly 300 persons every year by imparting industrial training in various trades. However on scrutiny of records for the period 2010-15 it is revealed that none of the ITIs had any placement cell.
This was in contrary to recommendation made by the NCVT in its 36th meeting held in December 2007 for setting up of ‘Placement Cell’ in every ITI to assist trainees in securing employment in different industries.
“These ITIs had not been able to provide employment to a large percentage of trainees even after successful completion of the courses,” the CAG said adding “Only 546 out of 1480 skilled trainees (37%) could get employed.”
According to the report, the performance of girls vis-à-vis boys in performance indicators such as admissions, drop outs, and pass percentage was much better.
Stating that there was also delay in getting trades affiliated to the National Council of Vocational Training (NCVT), the CAG said, “Due to lack of infrastructure facilities and manpower shortage, 18 trades in 9 ITIs had not been affiliated to NCVT.”
Further the report also revealed that huge funds was lying unspent as centre’s assistance specifically earmarked for this purpose was not fully utilized.
“Out of 37.75 crore received during 2010-15, a total amount of Rs 5.33 crore (14%) was lying unspent as of March 2015, which indicates poor execution,” the CAG said in its report.
On this, Directorate of Employment and Craftsmen Training (DECT) had stated that non-utilization of funds was due to vacant posts, less expenditure on medical treatment, non-drawal of stipend, dropping out of trainees and non-utilization of World Bank schemes.
There was undue delay of 2 months to 29 months in disbursing stipend to trainees, the report stated.
Meanwhile, most of the ITIs lacked basic amenities such as potable water, toilet and bathroom facilities, playground while four ITIs were operating from rented buildings from 4 to 24 years. Two of three hostel buildings had not been utilized till date.
Monitoring of the ITIs by the inspecting officers of the state Directorate/Meghalaya State Council for Training in Vocational Trades, physical verification of stock and internal audit is ‘totally absent’.
Meanwhile, the CAG had recommended the state government and DECT to prepare a time-bound programme to operationalize 13 ITIs by the twelfth Five Year Plan.
Besides adequate infrastructure facilities, the DECT is also recommended to liaise more effective with industrial units for providing much needed exposure to trainees.-By Our Reporter
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