Newstrack

Punjab plans first civil aviation varsity

Prashant Krar - Chandigarh

Targeting to cash in on high employment generation potential in civil aviation industry, Punjab government has decided to set up the country's first civil aviation university in the state. The state would also house a training institute for the construction industry to be set up by Larsen & Toubro(L&T), revealed chief minister Parkash Singh Badal while speaking at the workshop on strategy for human resource development - employment generation and training recently.

Keen to set up the university in the state, the chief minister announced that state would soon hire the services of eminent consultants and key players in the field of civil aviation to prepare the blue print of the proposed university. He assured that the detailed modalities would be worked out with the ministries of civil aviation and human resource development for the setting up of the university. "A big portion of unemployed in the state include school and college drop outs who need to be made aware and impart skills to, increase their employability," Badal said.

Strongly pitching for the civil aviation university in the state, V Mulekar, advisor, aviation services Maharashtra Aiport Development Corporation said that aviation industry would require over one million trained professionals including pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers, cabin crew, air traffic managers, aviation law and medicines and others by 2020. "There is huge scope for a full fledged aviation University that would roll out all kinds of professionals required by domestic and foreign aviation industry," he said. He informed that at present there is just one civil aviation university at Singapore in Asia whereas the Indian industry is hugely dependent on a few flying clubs and two aviation institutes namely Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Udan Akademi (IGRUA) in Rae Bareli and Gondia in Maharashtra.

Also, L&T vice president, Talpade proposed to set up a skill training centre at Abul Khurana to focus on imparting skill training for the youth of the Malwa region. L&T is running four training institutes for the construction industry at Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi and is mulling to relocate its Delhi institute to Punjab.