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NT Bureau
Chennai, Feb 3:

        Chairman of Council for Leather Exports (CLE) Mukhtarhul Amin has appealed to the Central government to either upgrade or change the syllabus of academic institutions such as the Central Footwear Training Institute and the IITs to cope with the shortage of skilled manpower the leather industry was facing.

        Briefing the media in Chennai about CLE's vision map for 2010-2011 on Thursday, Amin said, 'CLE has proposed the setting up of 15 integrated leather parks under the 11th Five Year Plan'.

        The government would share 40 per cent of the equity costs of each park to be set up at a cost of Rs 100 crore, and each park would generate 5,000 jobs, he added.

        He further said workstations to equip rural youth to play a role in the leather goods manufacturing industry would be set up. Depending on the success of the project which was being promoted by the Tamilnadu government at Kancheepuram, such workstations would come up in other parts of the country. Kancheepuram's facility has a capacity to manufacture one lakh pairs of footwear a day. It would house 20 units.

        CLE has targeted an increase of exports to US $7 billion by 2010-2011, from the existing $3 billion. An estimated Rs 7,300 crore in investments would be required over the next five years.

        The council was also planning to attract foreign direct investments by organising road- shows in European countries like Spain and France, as they were the major clients of Indian leather goods.