IIT-Kharagpur Launches India’s First Multi-Disciplinary Short Course On Outsourcing Practices

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) has introduced the first-of-its-kind course on outsourcing practices in India, the Indian Express reports. The institute, on Friday (4 January), released a statement saying the multi-disciplinary short course has been introduced on the advice of the Union government.

The IIT-KGP Department of Mining Engineering will run the one week course, which includes the study of how outsourcing can be ethical and in the justified parameters as well as how the best practices can be encouraged in the labour market.

The statement adds that such courses will be conducted from time to time over the year for a week, and the first batch of students taking the course mainly drawn from the power and coal sectors.

The ministries of Labour and Employment, Rural Development, pollution control boards, other regulatory bodies and IBM are providing resources for the initiative, the statement said, while adding the move aims to sensitise the public and private sectors as well as paving the way for the best practices in outsourcing.

Professor Jayanta Bhattacharya, Department of Mining Engineering, said, “The companies are thinking short term. They are creating work practices that are not sustainable….”

According to Bhattacharya, while there is no problem for availing funds or any technology, but employing people legally and ethically is a problem. People, who are drawing up notice and inviting tenders or NITs, often from accounting or engineering background, have “no understanding of the law or even, actual engineering practice”, he adds.

The faculty of the course comes from courses of Mining Engineering, Intellectual Property Law and the Vinod Gupta School of Management. All of these have a long experience when it comes to dealing with regulations concerning industry like environmental clearance, acquisition of land, outsourcing standards and various other burning issues.