Date:29/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/29/stories/2007122954380800.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘India is facing a shortage of engineers’

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: Anna University Vice-Chancellor D. Viswanathan on Thursday said that there was a demand for 10 lakh engineers in the country.

Speaking at a function organised at the South-East Asia Group of Educational Institutions at Krishnarajapuram here to lay the foundation stone of an engineering college building, he said that developed countries needed a large number of highly educated and skilled people to work in various industries and institutions.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee laid the foundation stone.

Administrative Reforms Commission Chairman M. Veerappa Moily participated in the function.

Chairman of the group and former Minister A. Krishnappa presided over the function.

Infrastructure

Dr. Viswanathan said India needed at least 1,200 universities to produce professionals required to serve in developed countries in the next two decades. There was a need to create world class educational infrastructure in the country to meet this demand, he added.

Sunil Jaygoda, senior adviser, World Bank, Government of Sri Lanka, said the U.S. and Canada needed three lakh nurses as many of them would retire by 2010.

He said that SEA Educational Institutions, which were affiliated to various universities abroad, would sign memorandums of understanding with a few of them to provide quality education to students in its nursing college.

The degree certificates given by the college would enable students to get jobs in the U.S. and Canada, he added.