What motivated your company to set up such an impressive training facility? Is this a pure business proposition or is it a CSR initiative?
The gap of skill sets required and available in India was my primary motivation to start this institute. As an institute, this is a standalone activity and not directly connected with CSR activity. But for Svenska Group, this has been a CSR activity.

How do you search and organise the participants for your training programs? What are the eligibility criteria for selecting them?
We have adopted a ground level methodology to select the students. We reached out to around 200 ITIs and conducted seminars to educate the students on how we can bring value to them. Ideally we take the list of ITIs in India and target a few states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand.

In a nutshell, the criteria is Diploma and BE for managing the sites and ITI for primarily on their trade: Diesel mechanics, Electricians, Fitters etc. The minimum qualification criteria for ITI students is 50 per cent passing mark in their respective trade and for Diploma/BE students, it is 60-65 per cent mark.

How do you evaluate the effectiveness of the training provided by you?
We have developed our own strong internal examinations, which we conduct during the course period. Further, our students are subjected to government examinations. We have been accredited by Human Resource Development Facility (HRDF) of Goa aswell as the Central Government. The students go through the examinations of HRDF and they certify the students independently. As far as the effectiveness is concerned, nearly 200-250 students who were passed out are well placed in the industry and around 25 per cent of them are working abroad earning 4-5 times what their counterparts are earning in India.

Where do you see your facility 3-5 years from today? What are your expansion plans?
We are planning to have our franchisee branches for the classroom sessions to be expanded in southern states as well as in parts of Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh where mining activity is on a bigger scale and is growing rapidly. We are planning to focus on southern states because here the students seldom come to institutes due to language issue. So we have also converted this programme into vernacular medium. We also plan to develop the skill set in the north-eastern part where people remain in their home states.