In view of India’s 5G rollout in the near future, the Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) on Wednesday said it plans to train one-lakh people in the next three years and open 10 new ‘Centres of Excellence’ across the country.

The TSSC launched a report titled ‘Overview: Indian Telecom Market 2022-23’, in which it has charted out the areas of traction where the telecom industry would witness growth in the coming financial year.

The report highlighted that in the past year, there was a combined demand of over 1.5 lakh in roles in 5G, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics, Internet of things (IoT), Mobile App-Development and Robotic Process Automation - the demand supply gap is almost 28 per cent. The talent demand supply gap will continue to widen with the advent of 5G and allied technologies roll out, it said.

Reskilling required

“India with a vast gamut of telecom and network-related services has an immense opportunity for skilling and growth. A levelled progression in the skilling requirement will ensure progression and a deeper look at the technological changes along with skilling will ensure upgradation, make the workforce more relevant for future,” K Rajaraman, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), said.

This would require a tremendous amount of follow ups within the IT systems with high reliability which will enable affordable upskilling/reskilling, he said.

“We hope to address policy issues like low penetration of Broadband, right of way (RoW) issues and the industry needs to proliferate at CAGR of 30-40 per cent in order to create phenomenal jobs. TSSC should put in place set of occupational categories such as rural broadband technician which can support the development of BharatNet within the country especially rural areas,” he added.

Arvind Bali CEO, TSSC said that the ecosystem is seeing a big influx of manufacturing units with approval for PLI in telecom equipment, electronics, and handset manufacturing.

“With original equipment manufacturers setting shops in India, they will need a plethora of job roles to set up their supply chain. We aim to aid the ecosystem with a world-class skilled workforce for 5G and its allied technologies,” Bali said.