Federal Skill Academy to add two centres this fiscal

Federal Bank will look to raise tier-I capital over the next 12 months, its Chief Operating Officer Shalini Warrier has said.

She told reporters that the bank is adequately capitalised for the present, but is looking at growth capital.

“We have got the Board’s approval,” she said, but declined to comment on the size of the issue and the timing, apart from maintaining that the details would be known in a few months. “Details are being worked out.”

Warrier was in the city at the maiden convocation ceremony of Federal Skill Academy, a CSR project of the bank.

The bank has two such academies - one each at Kochi and Coimbatore. It is planning to add two more centres this fiscal.

The initiative is to facilitate unprivileged students acquire skills in different vocational streams and enable them to be employed both within and outside India.

SB Global Educational Resources is the implementing partner of the bank in this project.

The Kochi centre imparts training in heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration, while the centre in Coimbatore focuses on CNC machine programming, welding and automotive engineering. The bank offers full scholarship to the trainees.

According to Warrier, the academy in Kochi has imparted training to 240 candidates and to 136 candidates at the Coimbatore centre.

It is targeting to train at least 450 candidates in each of the centres this fiscal.

The centre at Kochi plans to start an all-woman batch on a pilot basis in three months. This programme is with an eye on self-employment opportunity, Warrier said.