IT SMEs say skilled-hand crunch is hurting

Information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITeS) small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Punjab and Chandigarh are claiming skilled manpower shortage. The industry is of the view that in majority of the engineering institutions, the course curriculum is, by and large, theoretical with students having limited exposure to practical knowledge. This leads to a failure in meeting the needs of the industry. The industry says big companies have infrastructure to train manpower according to their needs but SMEs can't afford to do that and are dependent on colleges. There are over 170 information technology SMEs in Chandigarh and Punjab. In the recent past, there has been a growth of engineering colleges in Punjab, giving a picture that there is no dearth of technically sound students. However, institutes are not training students according to the trend or demands of the IT industry. Speaking to Business Standard, Abhishek Gupta, founder, Indian Mesh, said, "In 5-10 years, we have seen a significant growth in the number of colleges that offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in IT and computer engineering. But many institutes have failed to deliver the manpower required by the industry. We have witnessed a huge decline in the standards of education, therefore, the majority of these graduates are unemployable. Now these colleges are finding it hard to fill seats." Read More