It is the mother of all manufacturing and deals with moulds, jigs & fixtures, plastics, die casting, dies and so on. "A three-year diploma is a crucial component in a one year in-plant training programme," says Suhu, a student who did this course from IGTR Aurangabad.
Job prospects: Across manufacturing sectors you begin as a technician. Quite a few tool and die makers become tool designers. Some open their own tool and die shops.
Pay package: Well-trained Tool and die makers can command very good salaries. The starting salary is anywhere between Rs 6,000 to Rs 26,000 per month. Ranjeet Prasad Singh who passed out in 2006 from the Indo-Danish Tool Room at Jamshedpur and is currently a Design Engineer at TATA Technologies Ltd says, "DTDM is a job-oriented course, much better than other polytechnic/Diploma courses. The students are practically highly skilled and do not shirk from hard work. It is a collective effort" says Sahu.
Training: Most of the institutes offering diploma in tool and die making are in the government sector. Set up to fulfill the tooling and training needs of the micro and small industries, we present a list of these institutions and their relevant details as a course listing. The challenge here is that due to the extensive training required, very few people enter the field and the employers do face difficulty in recruiting qualified candidates.