The ATDC ‘Hunar ki Hunkar’ was inaugurated by Chairman AEPC, Mr. Virender Uppal, in presence of Sri Hari Kapoor, Vice-Chairman, ATDC, Shri Ashok Logani, Chairman DISHA Sub- Committee, Shri Lalit Gulati, Shri Lalit Thukral and DG Apparel Training and Design Centre (ATDC), Dr. Darlie Koshy.
The ‘Skilling & Upskilling’ journey by ATDC in the pilot project period and the activities and initiatives to achieve the massive target of 250,000 candidates in 5 years has been showcased in ‘Hunar ki Hunkar’- Exhibition-cum-Display. The 2 day event (20th - 21st February 2014) began at Apparel House, Gurgaon. The event also featured ‘Hunar Se Rozgar’ initiative with over 22 Exporters present and nearly 1,000 youth seeking employment.
Sri Virender Uppal, Chairman AEPC,ATDC & IAM highlighted that, “ATDC has emerged as the largest training provider in the apparel sector with about 190 Centres in 22 States and 85 Cities and have trained over 1,00,000 people in less than 3 years under Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS), MOT, GOI through SMART (Skills for Manufacturing of Apparel through Research &Training) Centres set up specially for implementation of the training programme and over 12,000 candidates under long-term programmes through ATDC Vocational Institutes.
ATDC has been also recognized by the ‘UK India Skill Forum Award 2011 and ASSOCHAM as the best vocational Institute.’ These awards are in recognition of ATDC’s outstanding commitment to the Skills Agenda in the apparel sector by providing employable skills to youth, women and disadvantaged sections of the Society.”
Sri Virender Uppal, Chairman AEPC,ATDC & IAM said “ATDC- ‘Hunar ki Hunkar’ is a key platform created for the youth of India which needs to get vocational training to become productive, and a coverage of skills, employers, training providers, corporates, NGOs and other stakeholders converge.”
It is estimated that from 2013-2022, about nine million people are expected to be added to the apparel industry (both exports & domestic), out of which at least 7-8 million would be the addition to shop-floor workforce given the growth in both export and domestic industries and the rest in different tiers of manufacturing as well as merchandisers, designers, managers etc. With high attrition rates of 12-18% in the production floors, trained workforce is required to substitute and also for expanding capacities, he added.