Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) announced that it will set up Automobile Skill Enhancement Centres (ASECs) across 15 Government run ITIs, across 11 states, in the next three months. These ASECs will be part of the company’s skill development initiative under their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The first of these ASECs was inaugurated by Kenichi Ayukawa, MD & CEO of Maruti Suzuki at ITI Nizamuddin in New Delhi.
Each ASEC will be equipped with a workshop to provide practical training in automobile service and repair to students. The workshops will be equipped with the latest Maruti Suzuki vehicles. Along with this, the company will appoint full-time trainers. It will arrange training for the existing ITI teachers on latest technology and equipment. Maruti Suzuki will also organize industrial outreach programmes to upgrade skills of students and make them job-ready.
In recent years, Maruti Suzuki has partnered with 110 government ITIs across the country to impart training in automobile service and repair. These partnerships benefit 6000 students annually, almost all of whom are employed at various automobile workshops.
In 2015-16, the company had also started courses for denting and painting under car service and repair. For this, Auto Body Repair (ABR) and Auto Body Paint (ABP) labs were set up at ITIs in PUSA (Delhi), Dhoraji, Rajkot and Tollygunge, Kolkata.
After inaugurating the ASEC and Auto Body Paint and Auto Body Repair course in ITI, Nizamuddin, Ayukawa said: “Maruti Suzuki is committed to supporting the government’s ‘Skill India’ initiative. India’s automobile industry is growing steadily, and technology and features are being upgraded at a rapid pace. There is need for skilled people to service and maintain these automobiles. At the same time, India has a large pool of young people who have to be trained for the job market. It is estimated that the automobile industry will be ready to employ 125,000 skilled technicians at workshops in the next five years. By partnering with I.T.Is our mission is to train 30,000 youth and help them become employable in workshops, thus leading a better life.Through our Skill initiatives under CSR, we are able to make thousands of youth employable every year supporting “Make in India” while ensuring that auto industry customers continue to get quality service and maintenance of their vehicles. We are thankful to the ITIs, departments of technical education in various states and our dealers, all of whom are partners in this national effort.”
The latest set of 15 ASECs are being established at select partner ITIs in Delhi, Varanasi, Amritsar, Patiala, Gorakhpur, Jaipur, Udaipur, Ambala, Solan, Coimbatore, Shillong, Pune, Meerut, Hyderabad, and Indore. These ASECs will be functional by August 2017, when the next academic session starts.