Kolkata: The Centre is committed to provide all possible support to the Board of Practical Training, Eastern Region for imparting job skill training to graduate and diploma engineers, who are yet to secure direct employment, a senior government official said.
      
He also said the Ministry of Education has made provision for financial support of over Rs 30 crore for such training exercises during this year.  
    
"I applaud the effort of BOPT(ER) for providing job opportunities to lakhs of students through skill development under National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS)," said Achint Kumar, Under Secretary, Ministry of Education.
    
He was speaking on the occasion of ‘Regional Apprentice Day 2021' at Salt Lake here on Saturday.
    
Director, BOPT(ER) S M Ejaz Ahmed said a total of 47,520 fresh graduate engineers, technologists and diploma holders from different institutions have already enrolled for apprenticeship training in 2021 from Eastern India, with 14,189 students signing up from West Bengal.
    
"During the present pandemic situation, job loss is more than job gain… this is a matter of concern for technical graduates.” he said.
    
"During the last three years BOPT(ER) has trained over 1,20,000 technical graduates in more than 2.500 registered establishments/industries in the eastern region. It is observed that around 92 per cent apprentices are either absorbed in the same organisation or secured employment in other establishments post completion of training,” Ahmed added.
    
BOPT (ER) Chairman and IIT-Kharagpur Director Virendra Kumar Tewari said celebration of 'Regional Apprentice Day' is an initiative to reach out to maximum number of students who could be helped in such uncertain times.