apparelindia - Apparel Export Promotion Council

ATDC Updates
Thus, we had to create a BRAND which is contemporary
and would help ATDC to position a number of courses
in today’s context of modern apparel industry. SMART
was thus conceived as “Skills for Manufacturing of
Apparel through Research & Training” and as a brand
which stands for the above factors. The humane quality
of the whole endeavour was also visually represented by
embedding a young man and woman as part of the M in the
Brand. The brand also stands for research into the training
methodology and pedagogy. Thus the SMART brand was
launched as part of National Launch of Integrated Skill
Development Scheme (ISDS) of Ministry of Textiles (MOT),
Government of India (GOI) on 8th October 2010. Since
then the brand has captured the imagination of over 41,000
candidates as of November 2012 and more than 75% of the
candidates have been absorbed in apparel manufacturing
large factories, SMEs , domestic apparel units / womens’
self-help groups etc.
Setting-up of ATDC-SMART Training of
Trainers’ Academy
ATDC has been systematically upgrading the training
infrastructure, pedagogy, industry-relevant curricula and
systems and processes since the introduction of Integrated
Skill Development Scheme (ISDS) in October 2012/
February 2011. One of the major initiatives of ATDC is
to train the trainers as there is acute shortage of quality
trainers to train the candidates envisaged under the skill
mission of the Ministry of textiles especially considering
the huge target of 1.72 lakh people mandated to ATDC.
ATDC thus initiated the Training of Trainers’ Academies
in Gurgaon and in Thiruvananthapuram to train trainers
and have trained over 500 trainers with an objective of
upgrading the skills and competencies of existing and
new faculty resources. In addition, the academies have
been entrusted for the task locating and identifying
international experts to offer high quality training in the
areas in which India is weak like Industrial Engineering
etc. The 3rd Academy will be operational by December in
Chhindwara & during 2013 in the State of Rajasthan. Also
the Academies have been given the task of creating digital
contents for blended learning approach for the courses
offered under SMART and to create ‘online’ support system
for aiding the learning in the long run.
Technological and Infrastructure
upgradation
It is well established that China which has achieved
US$153 billion of apparel exports, cornering 68% of the
market and Bangladesh, which has crossed US$18 billion
would not have been able to do without upgrading of its
technology with Under Bed Trimmer (UBT) machines and
various advanced workstations etc. The Indian apparel
industry was slow in upgrading the technology which can
be seen from the fact in the first edition of Technology
Upgradation Fund (TUF) Scheme, there was less than
4% off take of funds by Apparel sector. ATDC therefore
decided to bring in State-of-Art technology at all its
training centres.
This had a positive effect in terms of infrastructure
and technology used in ATDC’s instructional context. In
addition an Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) system
to link all the 128 centres on a real time basis is getting
ready by next year.
From ‘Operator’ to ‘SMART OPERATOR’
Industry Feedback
ATDC has developed a unique data base of all the
candidates who were given not only the chance to acquire
non-credit certification but also lateral/vertical mobility
to join creditised courses of 6 months, 1 year and 2 years.
In order to continuously monitor industry feedback a
separate Placement Cell was created at the NHO which not
only organises placement across the country but loops in
feedback on the courses and the candidates.
“ATDC’s short-term courses under
SMART and long-term courses under
“ATDC Community College” address
critical knowledge and skill-sets
required for the apparel sector, to
make candidates ‘Industry Ready’
right from the start.”
-Dr. A. Sakthivel,
Chairman, AEPC (ATDC & IAM)
“We need better workforce, beginning
from the shop-floor level, so that we
can compete in the global world and
SMART courses are well designed for
that.”
-Sh. H.K.L Magu,
Chairman, AEPC (ATDC & IAM)
“The ATDC students I hired
suggested a new way of checking
garments which proved to be efficient.
I still remember the innovations that
they made.”
-Sh. Vijay Jindal,
Owner, SPL Industries
38 APPAREL INDIA