Center for home furnishing inaugurated for skilling courses

A Centre of Excellence for Apparel, Made-Ups and Home Furnishing Sector Skill Council (AMHSSC) was inaugurated at nearby Tirupur Thursday. The AMHSSC was formulated by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and National Skill Development Council (NSDC) to develop skills repository for apparel value chain, national occupational standards in the industry, including third-party assessments and certifications.

The mandate given to the council includes the creation of National Occupational Standards, Affiliating Training Providers in apparel training and assessing and certifying the trainees of such Institutes/Training Providers. Inaugurating the Centre, MSDE Secretary KP Krishnan said the fact that skills need to be made aspirational was something Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emphasized in every forum, and platforms like AMHSSC's CoE, will make a mark in the skilling in the apparel sector.

In a press release, Chairman of AMHSSC, A Shaktivel said the council has been given an ambitious target of certifying more than two million people till 2022 in the skilling courses for the apparel sector. The council is spearheading the skilling work in the sector by participating in the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) and various other schemes of different states including the non-PMKVY schemes, he said. The council has set up two Centers of Excellence at New Delhi and Tirupur at a cost of Rs two crores each and would basically be involved in research work on apparel manufacturing technology.

Thereon it would be conducting short-term Management Development Programmes (MDPs) and Supervisory Development Programmes (SDPs) for the managerial and supervisory resources in apparel manufacturing units for the purpose of productivity enhancement. In addition to this, the Training of Trainer (TOT) and Training of Assessor (TOA) programmes shall also be conducted at these centres. The duration of the courses would be 2 to 3 days. The perceived benefits to the industry would be reduced cost, increased efficiency, reduced risk, talent management, outsourcing/offshoring, career advancement among others.