New Delhi: Services and manufacturing sectors could face a shortage of five to six million skilled professionals in the next five years. This is due to the fact that the country?s educational centres ill-equipped to meet the industry?s demand, says industry body PHDCCI.

According to the PHDCCI, educational institutions in the private and public domain are not making organized efforts to create and upgrade skill sets of professionals to meet the future requirement.

?There are signals of manpower shortages already in the horizon with the growth rate picking up in recent years and wage rates getting overheated,? says Sanjay Bhatia, President of PHDCCI.

Manufacturing in India is getting highly digital and requires skilled professionals, the chamber says, adding ITIs are still producing manpower with outdated skills, hence making its difficult for the industry to accommodate them.

The services sector is growing faster than agriculture, and requires more than three million skilled professionals per annum, it said. The demand in services would be fuelled by sectors like IT, ITeS, banking, hospitality, retail and insurance among others.

The chamber said that cross company poaching would further aggravate distortions in the job market if the country failed to meet the increasing demand. Upgrading ITIs would require greater investment and public-private partnerships.

The chamber also suggested that the Government should set up a task force to realistically asses the manpower requirements.