After completing class X, Velmurugan, son of a coolie at Potharai village in Thiruvanammalai district moved to Chennai to eke out a living. A building contractor engaged this young lad for some time, but Velmurugan could not sustain for long.

He then joined his uncle - an electrician as his assistant. But Velmurugan found that he was not earning enough to make two ends meet.

“During one of my calls, I came across an advertisement about skills training being imparted to under privileged youth by ICICI Foundation. I came over, underwent a 12-week training programme and got placed by Godrej as a trainee. My package at start was Rs 6,500 (excluding accommodation and food); within six months I was elevated to the position of service engineer and am now getting close to Rs 20,000 a month,” says Velmurugan.

Each person that this correspondent met at the ICICI Academy at Sundarapuram here had a story to narrate; some of the girls could not control their tears as they recalled the struggle, the hardship that they went through prior to joining the academy.

ICICI Academy

The academy has in the last two years (since inception in 2013) trained 25,200 youths (of which 32 per cent were women) belonging to the economically weaker sections. It has set up 22 centres across the country (including 10 centres exclusively for training of women).

Coimbatore centre, which is among the flagship ones in the country, is the largest one, the academy’s Chief Executive Chinmay Sengupta, said.

The centre has trained 2,880 individuals so far and secured 100 per cent placement. It currently offers residential courses to 638 students in six disciplines such as electrical and home appliances repair, refrigeration and AC repair, pumps and motor repair, central air-conditioning repair, two and three-wheeler service technician and selling skills.

It has tied up with industry partners such as Schneider Electric India Foundation, Blue Star, Crompton Greaves, Voltas, Godrej, Perfect Engineers, Best Engineers, Ramdev Motors, Aquasyb, Geethanjali Electricals, Energy Control Corporation, TVS Training and Services, Global Innova, Axis Bank, Muthoot Fincorp and Reliance Communication. It has also set up practical training laboratories to facilitate practical orientation.

“We bear the entire training, boarding and lodging cost of each of these trainees during the 12-week period,” Sengupta said before sharing details on allocation of funds.

The foundation had allocated Rs 90 crore last year for imparting skills training. This has been enhanced to Rs 110 crore this fiscal, he said.

Besides the ICICI Academy, the foundation has through its Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs) imparts training to the rural populace. RSETIs have the capacity to train 45,000 individuals annually, Sengupta said.

On the numbers that the academy is targeting to train, he said: “By March 2016, 36,000 students would have passed out of the ICICI Academy and the RSETIs would have trained over 25,000 rural under privileged youth.

The academy and the RSETIs will train close to 45,000 candidates in the 2017 fiscal and take the total number of trained youth to over a lakh.”

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