The 10th annual general meeting (AGM) of Pharmexcil in Hyderabad announced setting up of a new forum called Life Sciences Sector Skilled Development council (LSSSDC). The council headed by Satish Reddy of Dr. Reddy’s Labs as Chairman and Ranjit Madan as chief executive officer, is aimed at helping the industry to overcome the shortage of skilled workforce, particularly in the pharma and life sciences sector.
Currently the pharma and biotechnology industry in India is facing a lot of problems in getting the right kind of skilled workforce at different levels and functions. It is estimated that at least 50 per cent of the Industry’s revenue is being spent on training and grooming of the workforce. To overcome this, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in coordination with National skill development Corporation (SSDC) has decided to set up LSSSDC for the life sciences sector.
Announcing the setting up of new council, Ranjit Madan, said, “The main aim of this council is to ensure that the life sciences industry gets adequate number of skilled workforce across different functions and levels in the Industry. At present industry is facing a huge dearth of availability of skilled workforce in the country. It is also bearing the extra burden of training new recruits and incurring extra costs. And of late, rising concerns of fake degree certificates is also become a big challenge for the industry to locate the right skilled workforce. To overcome all these challenges, LSSSDC is set up to train and certify approximately 3.4 million workers in the life sciences sectors in the next 10 years.”
The skill development council will work as a not for profit organisation with a public private partnership 49 and 51 per cent stake respectively. Funding for the first few years will be through a combination of grant through NSDC and contributions from Industry, via its associations. And in the course of time the council is expected to become self sustained through revenue flows from fees for training, accreditation, certification and membership.
The governing body of the council will have representatives from various groups such as Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA ), Organisation of pharmaceutical producers of India (OPPI), Bulk drug manufacturers Association (BDMA), Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA), Confederation of Indian Pharmaceutical Industry (CIPI), Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises and Association of Clinical Research Organisation (ACRO), Pharmexcil and National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Delhi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research (DISPAR) from the Academia.
As part of the initial funding for the council, the NSDC has already allocated Rs.5 crore and about Rs.75 lakh have been pooled from the Industry. “Initially, the council is planning to set up 5 skill development centres across India. These include Ahmadabad in Gujarat, Baddi in Himachal Pradesh, Hyderabad in Telangana, Bengaluru in Karnataka and Mumbai in Maharashtra,” said Mr Ranjit.
For the next 10 years, the LSSSDC is aiming to map at least 100 job roles in the life sciences sector and enlist about 340 training organisations and train over 39,000 trainers who will be recruited to train the fresh graduates as skilled workforce for the industry.
“At present, we are actively pursuing the process of selection, building contacts, and reviewing profiles of agencies for accreditation. By the end of this year we will be completing the all the processes of identifying agencies, recruiting master trainers and also procure required laboratory equipments and other infrastructure and will start the training programme by the beginning of 2015,” informed Ranjit, while giving details on the present status of the council’s activities.