India’s pet care industry has been hiring for years without anywhere to hire from. Groomers learn on the job or from YouTube. Boarding facility staff learn from whoever ran the place before them. On 6 October, a proposal was made that could begin to change that — and it came as an aside at someone else’s event.
What was said, and where
On 6 October 2026, Maharashtra’s Minister for Skill Development, Employment and Entrepreneurship, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, inaugurated a dedicated pet care education and training institute in Pune. Its management describes it as the first of its kind in the country. It will offer government-recognised certificate courses — certified by the Government of Maharashtra — in pet handling, dog walking, pet sitting, grooming and boarding facility management.
Speaking at the inauguration, Lodha said pets had become an inseparable part of families, and that a society could be judged by how it treats animals.
He then said something that has received far less attention. Lodha proposed introducing a specialised pilot training programme for pet care professionals at an Industrial Training Institute (ITI) in Mumbai, aimed at creating employment opportunities for young people in the sector.
That proposal, rather than the private institute, is the development worth tracking.
Being precise about what it is
It is worth stating clearly what was and was not announced, because some coverage has already overstated it.
It is a proposal, not an implemented decision. No notification, curriculum or start date has been announced.
It is one ITI in Mumbai, not a statewide rollout. Some reports have described pet care being introduced across the state’s ITIs. That is not what was said.
It is a pilot. Pilots are how vocational trades get tested before the National Council for Vocational Training considers them for wider adoption.
None of which makes it small. If it runs, it would be among the first times pet care enters India’s formal vocational training system — the same system that produces electricians, fitters, welders and motor mechanics.
Why an ITI matters more than a private institute
A private certificate is useful. An ITI trade is something else.
India’s ITIs are government vocational institutions affiliated to the National Council for Vocational Training. They train lakhs of students a year in recognised trades, at low fees, with nationally portable certification. A trade that enters the ITI system acquires:
- A standardised national curriculum rather than each provider teaching what it likes
- Affordability — ITI fees are a fraction of private course fees
- Reach beyond metros, into the district towns where pet ownership is now growing fastest
- Recognised certification that an employer anywhere in India understands
For an industry that currently has no agreed definition of what a qualified groomer even is, that would be a structural change.
The problem this is actually solving
Ask anyone running a boarding facility, grooming salon or day care in India what their hardest problem is, and staffing comes up before rent.
There is no training pipeline. A groomer handling a frightened sixty-kilo dog with clippers near its face has usually learned by watching someone else, who also learned by watching someone else. Restraint technique, stress signals, when to stop, basic first aid, recognising skin conditions that need a vet rather than a shampoo — none of it is standardised.
The consequences show up as injuries to animals, injuries to staff, and an industry where a bad operator is indistinguishable from a good one until something goes wrong.
Formal training does not fix that overnight. But it creates something that does not currently exist: a baseline that a pet owner can ask about.
What this opens up for young people
The employment case is straightforward, and it runs in two directions.
Jobs. Grooming salons, boarding and day-care facilities, pet retail chains, veterinary clinics needing support staff, pet transport services, and the handling roles inside the broader pet industry.
Self-employment. Grooming and hygiene centres, day-care facilities, pet-sitting and dog-walking services. These are low-capital businesses. A trained individual with a certificate and a small space can start one — which is precisely the kind of outcome skill development programmes are designed to produce.
The demand is not theoretical. Pet ownership in India has been rising steadily across metros and, increasingly, in tier-two and semi-urban areas where no organised services exist at all.
Three things worth watching
Whether the Mumbai ITI pilot actually launches. A proposal at an inauguration is not a programme. Watch for a notification from the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training, a curriculum, and an intake.
What the curriculum contains. Pet care training that covers grooming technique but skips animal welfare law, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Pet Shop) Rules 2018, stress recognition and first aid will produce technically competent handlers who do not know when they are causing harm. The content matters more than the certificate.
Whether other states follow. Maharashtra moving first is unsurprising — it has the largest organised pet market in the country. Karnataka, Delhi-NCR, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have the demand to justify the same move.
The honest assessment
A private institute in Pune and a proposal for one pilot in Mumbai will not solve the Indian pet industry’s skills gap. It would be easy to overstate what happened on 6 October, and some coverage already has.
But the gap has existed for a decade with nobody formally addressing it, and this is the first serious move toward a government-recognised answer.
The pet care industry in India has spent years asking to be taken seriously as an industry. Entering the vocational training system — the same one that certifies electricians and welders — is what that recognition actually looks like in practice.
The test is whether the pilot survives the gap between an inauguration speech and a government notification.
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