Indian aluminium industry needs skilled manpower to drive technology advancement: Nalco CMD

Technology advancement and skilled manpower development are the two key essentials of manufacturing sector transformation in India. While the country seems to be gaining momentum in the first part, in the second area, that is, in skilled manpower development, it still lags behind in comparison to other industrialized countries of the world, noted Dr. Tapan Kumar Chand, CMD, National Aluminium Company Limited.

He was addressing a seminar on “Emerging Technologies: The demand on talent and skills” organized by School of Management Studies, Ravenshaw University, on 25th March 2017 in Cuttack.

There he said, “Robotics is replacing repetitive tasks by around 30% but medium skills have seen an incremental growth of about 12% only. With a population of nearly 1.2 billion, of which 65% is productive workforce, and sluggish economic conditions he stressed that there is need to provide employment opportunities, engagement and growth in purchasing power so that the growth cycle can receive fresh momentum. Make in India initiative provides this opportunity for growth with focus on manufacturing and immediate focus on fundamental engineering.”

Dr. Chand said there is an acute dearth of employable skills in India at present and the academia must take notice of this need and address the gap accordingly. This they can do by increasing industry interactions and by designing syllabus that will ensure industry ready students.

He also spoke of the aluminium major's new business model and invited students to come up with ideas for the same.

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The Navaratna public sector enterprise Nalco made an announcement last year about their new corporate plan and business model, which they claimed would ensure profit through diversification, cost cutting and other means in a bid to withstand market onslaughts and slump cycle.

The New Business Model (NBM) would insulate Nalco from the ups and downs in the aluminium market, Dr. Chand said adding it also strengthens the company's aluminium business by reducing the cost with increase in volume of production through modernisation and brownfield expansion and upstream and downstream integration.

Besides, the model envisages diversification into green power, nuclear power, IPP, rare metal like titanium, recovery of iron from red mud waste and merchant mining that are immune to downturn in metal market, he said.