Paper Title
Human Capital Challenges in Electricity Distribution Sector: A Case of Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd

Abstract
Trained manpower is required at every stage due to rapid advancement of technology. The technical knowledge acquired from engineering colleges, polytechnics, industrial training institutes and technical institutes needs to be supplemented with applied engineering and managerial skills. These skills are to be regularly updated to cope with the ever progressing and rapidly advancing technologies. This indicates the increasing importance of each individual, which in turn makes manpower quality criteria more demanding. Power Sector reforms in India have gained momentum with the initiative of most of the State Government by restructuring the SEBs. The reforms are expected to change the way the Indian Electricity Supply Industry has been functioning for the few decades and therefore demands major changes in the roles of technical/managerial personnel at various levels. While the pool of potential recruits is sufficiently large, the challenge is in attracting the young graduates to the power sector, provide them adequate training and satisfactory work environment. With a large number of other growing industries and manpower intensive sectors becoming the preferred choice for the best talent, the Power Sector needs to find ways of attracting well qualified manpower. Apart from attracting new talent, the critical bottleneck in inducting manpower into the sector is inadequate training infrastructure. Index Terms— Manpower, Power Sector Reforms, Technology, Training, Skills.