Bharti to train 70 SC/ST students http://www.indiapress.org/gen/news.php/The_Pioneer/400x60/0
Rajeev Ranjan Roy | New Delhi ... as Centre offers freeship to 50 SCs for commercial pilot training The private sector has finally started responding to the Government's call for affirmative action to accommodate India's deprived sections. After NR Narayana Murthy's Infosys started training SC/ST students in batches, Sunil 'Bharti' Mittal has offered similar training to 70 students. The offer coincides with the decision of Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Meira Kumar to fund the commercial pilot training (CPT) for 50 SC students every year. Her Ministry had recently given a list of 70 eligible SC/ST students from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to the telecom major. "The latter has not only agreed to impart them 45-day training but also absorb them in the industry if they fair well," a senior Ministry official said. "Most of the short-listed candidates have science and engineering background, and we hope they would finally come out with flying colours. They would be free to join some other companies if they feel like. Bharti Group chairman and CEO Sunil Mittal has promised to continue with such affirmative action even in the future," the official added. The Ministry has also decided to increase the number of freeship from existing 20 to 50 for the SC candidates, aspiring to become commercial pilots. Each of the selected candidates would get full-financial assistance from the Ministry the moment he enters a Government or duly recognised institutes, imparting training for commercial pilots. The CPT is the costliest course being currently funded by the Ministry. "The financial assistance under the scheme goes up to Rs 25 lakh per candidate," a Ministry official dealing with the scheme said. The assistance is given only to the candidates whose family income is not more than Rs 2 lakh per annum. What seem to have apparently forced the Ministry to increase the CPT fellowship were the burgeoning applications for such assistance ever since the scheme was introduced. "There used to be 30 to 40 applications every year, with majority of them being eligible for assistance. As a result, the Ministry decided to increase CPT freeship to 50," an official said. The Centre's affirmative action for the upliftment of SC/ST too has increased, along with corporate houses now coming forward with concrete proposals to enhance the skills of SC/ST students. The industry chambers, CII, Assocham, and FICCI, have already initiated a slew of affirmative measures to help out the SC/ST candidates. Sources said that the SJ&E Minister herself has been writing to different industrial houses to impart skill development training to the eligible SC/STs aspirants. Infosys was the first corporate giant to respond to Kumar's idea by training 100 SC/ST graduates and post-graduates in Bangalore and majority of them got jobs in the country's leading IT and other firms. All of the students had undergone a rigorous training programme for six months at the total expenses of Infosys.
