NCAER to study HR requirement in pharma, biotech sectors

Jayashree Padmini - New Delhi

The government has retained the National Council for Applied Economic Research to undertake a study on the human resources (HR) requirement in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and automobile sectors.

This is subsequent to the recent meeting of the Science & Technology (S&T) Minister Kapil Sibal with secretaries of Department of Science & Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology as well as CSIR DG, Dr R A Mashelkar and ICMR DG, Dr N K Ganguli.

In the meeting, which also had industry participation, the NCAER made a detailed presentation based on its population study on gender, education and employment status.

DST secretary told Express Healthcare Management that the government is looking at assessing the HR requirement and their technological level in the industry segments of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and automobiles. The NCAER has been asked to study the sectors separately and submit the data.

Sources said that the government would constitute an expert committee to define the HR strategies for the country after considering the analysis of the sector needs. The department of Biotechnology as part of the National Biotechnology that is expected to announce early this year has already formed a committee to chart strategies for HR development in the sector.

Although the immediate priority is to assess the domestic requirement and evolve development strategies accordingly, the government’s HR development plan assumes high significance as global forces are looking at Asia, especially China, India and Singapore, as a major centre for their human resource requirement.

These centres have attracted attention because of various factors including, English speaking population in India and Singapore, generally high standards of education in the region, the existence of equivalent technologies and communications facilities.

Apart from the access to an educated workforce, cost of the workforce is a big advantage. According to a PriceWaterhouseCoopers projection, the four global pharmaceutical and healthcare companies employ more than 90,000 people and that over the next four years there will be more mega-mergers, creating a cluster of ‘‘Superpharma’’ companies that employ closer to 200,000 people.

— jayashreep@expressindia.com