Govt de-affiliates 400 ITIs, more on the cards

Bhubaneswar: As many as 400 ITIs have been de-affiliated after they were found lacking in the requisite infrastructure and trainers for imparting vocational training to students.

"We get (them) inspected, we see the quality of infrastructure, the trainers that should be there as per the guidelines. When it is not there the ITIs are de-affiliated because ultimately if you have to be an ITI at the NCVT (National Council for Vocational Training) level, there are certain minimum conditions that you have to meet," said Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajesh Agarwal.

The skill development ministry conducted the inspection with a view to maintaining their quality standards and also introduced voluntary self grading by the institutes, he said.

"We are trying to see that centres or institutes which are not up to the mark or quality are slowly chucked out of the system," Agarwal added.

The government's vocational training programmes are administered by industrial training institutes (ITIs), which cater to about 36 per cent of the 7 million people enrolled in various training programmes in India.

A total of 5,100 ITIs have been graded till now under the star rating system and are presently in the process of getting inspected through third parties and certification assessment, he further added.