To increase the employability of engineering graduates, Webel on Wednesday launched a finishing school for the information technology (IT) industry at Taratala. State IT minister Debesh Das and higher education minister Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury did the honours.

The primary aim of the school will be to help would-be techies develop their soft skills and acquire requisite knowledge to meet the demands of the industry.

Those studying in the final year of B.Tech, BE, M.Tech or ME and those who have just graduated in engineering will be eligible to apply for admission to the six-week programme. The course fee is Rs 5,000.

Efforts are on to organise campus interviews for those who complete the course successfully. Top corporate houses will be contacted for the purpose.

Webel has appointed retired dean of IIT Kharagpur T.S. Banerjee and professor of the computer science department of Calcutta University Sanjit Setua as advisers for the course.

In his speech at the launch, Das said that there were plans to introduce domain-specific courses in future but their implementation would depend on the response to the IT finishing school. The minister also revealed plans to set up IT finishing schools in Siliguri and Durgapur next year.

Rapid development in the IT industry over the past few years has resulted in a dearth of trained faculty in the state, stated Das.

To address the problem, the government has planned to invite ex-students of Webel Academy to enrol in private institutions that provide faculty training, added the minister. The government will also try to attract faculty from private institutions to the academy.

The secretaries of the state departments of IT and higher education, Webel chairman N.R. Banerjea and Webel managing director Debanjan Datta attended the launch.