India includes medical, agriculture training in ITEC programme
NAN-H-18
ITEC
By Temitope Ponle
Abuja, March 25, 2017 (NAN) India has said it has extended its India Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme to include medical and agricultural courses.
The Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Nagabhushana Reddy, said this on the sideline of an event to celebrate 2017 ITEC day on Friday.
Reddy told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the both governments were working together to understand programmes that were suitable for the Nigerian medical and agricultural sectors.
“Medical training cooperation is a new area we have identified and we are trying to expand on this sector.
“The idea is to possibly familiarise the medical professionals in the country to the techniques that are used in India and the overall development of medical infrastructure both under pure medicine as well as other medical devices.
“The second is agriculture and allied sectors. The leadership of Nigeria announced green alternative last year and this seems to be an important programme for Nigeria.
“We are trying to work with the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs to create tailor-made programmes in a number of agriculture and allied sectors; it is a huge sector.
“In this overall spectrum we hope to work out with your federal ministries what suits them best and see whether we can offer specialised training programmes in India for specialists in this area so that your programmes can take shape.”
He added that about 500 Nigerians from various sectors participated in the ITEC programme in 2016.
“The number of Nigerians that went to India under the ITEC programme is close to 300, under the civilian training programme. The military training programme is a separate programme in which more than 200 military officials have been to India.”
He recalled the Indian government announced 50 extra slots to Nigeria during the visit by Vice President Hamid Ansari to Nigeria in Sept. 2017.
He said that the allocation of the training slots would start in April.
The envoy also recalled that the Indian government had announced 50,000 extra training slots to Africa over a five-year period which started in 2016.
“There is great interest in Nigeria and these 50,000 slots will be available to countries that are interested and we hope to see how much of these will be available to Nigeria.”
The ITEC programme instituted in Sept 1964 is a flagship programme of the Indian government’s capacity building efforts.
ITEC Day has also been observed every year on Sept. 15 or during the course of the year. (NAN)
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Edited by Yusuf Zango