Chennai: With jobs in the corporate sector booming, finding the right people for entry or base-level jobs is a major problem being faced by Indian corporates.

As the workers for the base level jobs hail from the villages, they lack the attitude as well as the aptitude to work in a corporate set up. And corporates find it costly to impart the needed soft skills.

According to a 2001 Planning Commission report, nearly 44 per cent of workers in India are illiterate and 22.7 per cent have undergone primary schooling. Only 5 per cent of the work force in the age group 20-24 years had vocational skills. And only 10.1 per cent of male workers and 6 per cent of the female workers have marketable skills.

Given this, there is an urgent need to conduct at least pre-employment soft skill development programmes for those aspiring for entry or base-level corporate jobs.

Four companies - Marg Constructions Limited, Larsen and Toubro Limited (L&T), Lakshmi Machine Works Limited (LMW) and Tamil Nadu Road Development Company Limited (TNRDC) - have decided to involve themselves in the grass root level skill development initiative of Confederation of Indian Industry-Southern Region (CII-SR).

Says B. Santhanam, chairman, Task Force on Skills, Employability and Affirmative Action, CII-SR said, "We have tied up with couple of non governmental organisations (NGO) and staffing companies for this pilot programme."

According to him, NGOs like Anusuya Foundation and Hand-in-Hand would identify the trainers and the trainees. On their part, the staffing companies would give priority to the trainees in their recruitment.

While the trainers would be paid around Rs5,000 per month, the trainees will be paid a daily stipend of Rs50, during the month-long training programme, which the four corporates would bear.

According to Santhanam, the idea is to train around 5,000 people over a period of 18 months in soft skills like communication, time management, prioritisation of work and the like.

Marg Constructions sponsors the programme in Cheyyur near Chennai, LMW at Coimbatore , L&T at Thoppur in Tamil Nadu and TNRDC in Chennai, he added.

While this is at the grass root level, CII-SR has signed Memorandum of Understanding with University of Madras and Andhra Pradesh University whereby soft skills will be incorporated in the post graduate curriculum.

"Slowly it would be implemented in the undergraduate level," he added.

He said in order to highlight the issue of skill development at the national level CII-SR is holding conclave on Building Skills: Building India in Hyderabad on 26-27, October 2007.