Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), in association with Bengaluru-based Head Held High (HHH) Foundation, has launched an ambitious project to train up to one lakh youth from rural areas in the hospitality sector by the year 2030.
IHCL has established skill centres at select locations across the country to train youth for employment across industries, such as hospitality and retail sectors. The centre established at Taj Tirupati is unique in the sense that it runs entirely within the hotel premises.
The beneficiaries in this programme are mostly Intermediate pass-outs or college dropouts, who had to discontinue their undergraduate education owing to family circumstances and have remained confined to their villages around Tirupati.
Taj Tirupati Managing Director M.K. Rajasekhar Reddy, who welcomed the students and handed them books and uniforms at a formal induction programme, called it an attempt to upskill the rural youth and make them productive.
“Through this process, we will be able to fill the vacuum found in terms of quality manpower in the urban retail market,” observed Taj Tirupati General Manager Manoj Mishra.
HHH Foundation’s General Manager (Donor Engagement) Ninad Wadkar expressed hope that the job-readiness programme would change the lives of hundreds of enterprising youth waiting for a ray of hope in the rural areas. K.Subramanyam, who used to grow vegetables in his village farm located in Tirupati rural mandal, is thrilled at the transformation his life has started to undergo.
The training programme runs for 45 days, during which the trainees will be equipped with the nuanced skills required to make a fulfilling career in the hospitality and retail sectors.
