New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS): With the 5G rollout, India needs a ready-skilled workforce and the Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) on Tuesday announced to get over 1.25 lakh candidates placed across the industry through its placement initiatives and training labs.

The Council also said it will establish at least 50 new training labs and centres of excellence (CoEs) across India for various telecom job roles.

The TSSC announced a five-year partnership with the Technology Innovation Hub on Autonomous Navigation (TiHAN) at IIT Hyderabad which will focus on joint projects in skilling in emerging technologies like 5G and its use cases, internet of things (IoT), Cloud, AI/ML and others.

"It's not only 5G as the upcoming semiconductor technologies and the growth of electronics manufacturing in the country will also require a range of skills which students need to be acquainted with," said K Rajaraman, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

The Council said that the new training labs and CoEs will be set up at the ITIs and premier universities in a "hub and spoke model".

As an apex body for telecom skills, TSSC has expanded into new business avenues like development of CoEs, international skill development programmes, placements and paid programmes.

"5G technology is expected to boost the Indian economy by $450 billion between 2023 and 2040 and we are currently facing an acute shortage of about 1.4 lakh workers in 5G and its allied technologies," said Arvind Bali, CEO, TSSC.

TSSC will also train 1 lakh youth in 5G and allied technologies over the next three years with support from DoT.

"We have trained over 10 lakh candidates in various roles catering to the telecom industry demand," Bali informed.