SUV major Mahindra &
Mahindra Ltd. (M&M Ltd.), has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU)
with Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC), a skill development council
for the Automotive Sector. Under the aegis of this tie-up, Mahindra and ASDC
will deploy their core competencies to offer skill development training programme,
to generate employment in the Automotive Sector.
According to a company press release, this partnership
will facilitate employable skill training to the youth and prepare them for the
various functions of the automotive sector, from sales, service to
manufacturing. While ASDC will impart skill trainings by partnering with
Mahindra and leveraging the latter’s existing training facilities, Mahindra
will provide training aids, including course curriculum based on ASDC Standards
and further assist trainees to find suitable placements. Mahindra will also
offer its selected training infrastructure, expertise and training partners to
train students (from ITI and diploma holders amongst others) on various
automotive skill sets, in accordance with ASDC prescribed NOS (National
Occupation Standards) and make them employable.
Sanjoy Gupta, Vice President – Customer Care,
Automotive Sector, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. said, "With the aim of
enhancing the technical skill of youth and creating an employable pool of
skilled manpower, we have taken the first step by collaborating with ASDC. It
is our endeavour to identify employable youth and train them on specific
automotive skills to make them industry ready. As a socially responsible
corporate, we wish to address the resource crunch in the Indian automotive
industry by helping to develop a pool of skilled manpower via relevant
partnerships. Keeping this approach in mind, our tie-up with ASDC is a
significant step in the same direction. ASDC will provide the relevant industry
expertise and academic edge while Mahindra will provide the infrastructural
support to the students.”
Mahindra has a vast network of 30 training
centres, spread across 16 states, catering to technical training needs of 30000
dealer manpower across India. To begin with, the company has dedicated 18 of
these training centres, to ASDC for conducting its affiliated training courses.
These 18 centres are strategically located across the country with 6 in South,
2 in East, 6 in West & 4 in North Zones and are equipped with all the
standards specified by ASDC.
According to Sunil K Chaturvedi, CEO, ASDC,
“We are very happy to partner with Mahindra for skill development programme.
M&M was in fact among the leading companies to support ASDC initiative from
the beginning. India is fast becoming a global hub for Auto sector and many
automobile companies have set up shop here for Indian market as well as for
exports. This growth and the rising quality expectations of the customer will
require appropriately skilled people. As per projections, India needs almost 25
to 30 million additional skilled manpower in the next 10 years, to sustain the
demand in automotive Industry. With the recent emphasis on ‘Make in India’,
this demand may increase further.”
It is in this backdrop that
the automotive industry promoted the Automotive Skills Development Council
(ASDC) in partnership with the Government of India to address skills gap issue
to provide manpower trained and certified as per industry’s own standards. These
standards called National Occupational Standards have been developed by ASDC in
complete consultation with industry.
Chaturvedi further added, “
Because of disconnect between Academia and Industry, the job seeking youth
suffers from lack of employability. This
partnership between ASDC and M&M
will result in employment creation as students will be trained to industry
standards. As India’s very first sector council, it has been our endeavour to
facilitate the industry connect in skilling. Through this partnership we hope
to reach out to thousands of aspirants to provide the much needed skill edge to
the employable pool.” Right now we are starting with 18 centres for sales and
service domains but going forward I will urge Mahindra to assist in launching
many more training centres covering R&D, manufacturing, supply chain and driving domains among
others.”