ASDC Annual Conclave emphasises on building a skilling ecosystem

The Annual Conclave was held in New Delhi on September 23, 2022 brought together the biggest names in the Indian auto industry. Themed “Kushal Yuva - Samruddh Bharat”, the Conclave had 500+ participants that included senior bureaucrats and auto industry stalwarts, including CEOs and senior representatives from the Indian and global manufacturers, who presented their perspectives about the auto industry‘s role in emerging India and industry expectation from the skilling ecosystem.

Besides, the release of the Annual Handbook, ASDC also announced the Award of Excellence for different categories during the event.

The theme at the conclave drew the attention to endowing the youth with skills that can make them resilient to evolving challenges, improve their productivity in jobs, increase employability, and prepare them for the future. The conclave focused on bringing industry experts on-board to provide key insights for building a skilling ecosystem by partnering with the industry and making skills aspirational.

The conclave boasted a wide range of industry sponsors, including Castrol, Royal Enfield, Toyota, Yuvashakti Foundation, AXALTA, incaetek, tcsion, and many more.

The conclave was inaugurated by S.P. Baniwal, Special Commissioner of Delhi Police, Arindam Bhattacharya, Director (Development Partnership Administration), Ministry of External Affairs and Col. A. K. Chandel, Senior Head, NSDC & Technical delegate Assistant, World Skills India. ASDC’s President Vinod Aggarwal welcomed the Guests of Honour. The day-long event focused on various panel discussions on industry expectations from the skilling ecosystem, vocational skills institutions and industry training centres’ perspective on challenges and opportunities associated with skilling, and the role of the state to mobilize and make skills aspirational in the automotive skilling ecosystem.

Dr. N.S.  Kalsi, Chairman, NCVET emphasised that to address the skill deficit, India needs to extend high technical and vocational courses to improve employability. He said that recently ASDC has been granted recognition as an awarding body status by NCVET and ASDC is working well for upskilling and re-skilling. NCVET has developed several QP, aligned with NSQF for the automobile industry especially in Robotics, EV and align technology, AR/VR, Big Data and IoT.

S.P. Baniwal underlined that the YUVA program, which was started with the help of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, is meant to provide employment-oriented skills to those who are first-time criminals, victims of crimes and those who have propensity to commit crime. It not only mirrors humane and compassionate face of Delhi Police, but also serves the prime objective of policing, i.e. prevention of crime.

Vinkesh Gulati, Treasurer ASDC & Chairman Research and Academy at FADA said, “ASDC has facilitated training for 60,000 new skilled employees in the automotive sector in FY22. The chunk of these associates joined various OEMs, suppliers, as well as vehicle dealerships, under the government’s apprenticeship programme, which allows for on-the-job training and evaluation of an individual, before they get the course certification from ASDC”.

Earlier, in his welcome address, Vinod Aggarwal, President ASDC said, “The Indian auto industry, like the rest of the global automobile manufacturing sector, is going through a massive and disruptive change. ASDC, being a major stakeholder of the Indian automobile industry ecosystem, aims to prepare the country’s workforce and make it future-ready. This way, ASDC not only helps the auto industry of the country on a larger scale but helps the Indian economy at large and the AtmaNirbhar Bharat programme as well.”

Arindam Lahiri, CEO of ASDC said: “The council has teamed up with industry and training providers to develop various certification programmes with companies and has certified several candidates. Besides, it has also launched e-learning courses for the aspirants, in which people have been certified.”