Toyota partners ASDC for skill development

The company has till now trained around 500 rural youth in Karnataka and provided them jobs in its car manufacturing plant

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited (TKM) has embarked on a new initiative to increase employment opportunity for unskilled, rural youth. The company, through Toyota Technical Training Institute (TTTI) has tied up with Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) to provide high standard of education and quality training to the rural students of Karnataka on the automotive technology.

The new initiative is aimed at increasing the availability of skilled manpower for the company's car manufacturing plants and ancillary units in and around Bengaluru, said T S Jaishankar, deputy managing director, TKM.

"Through this tie up, we intend to create a pool of skilled manpower for the automobile industry in India. There is a huge gap in terms of both technical and soft skills among the ITI graduates and other diploma holders. At TTTI, we train the students further on these skills and make them industry ready. The students who get trained at our institute may opt for job at our plants or pursue employment elsewhere in the automobile industry," Jaishankar told Business Standard after signing the MoU with ASDC.

ASDC is funded by the government of India through National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). It will provide course curriculum to TTTI and also provide certification to the students, which will help in securing jobs in the automobile industry.

Till now, since the inception of TTTI in 2007, Toyota has absorbed close to 500 students that have passed out of the institute. "As we expand our production in both the car plants here and at our ancillary units, we will be in need of more trained workers. We are preparing for the future requirements," he said.

The trainees selected for training at this institute will emerge as skilled technicians in auto manufacturing. The institute is committed to provide the best training to the trainees with hands on experience, so that they can make a career for themselves in the fast growing industry, he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Sunil K Chaturvedi, chief executive officer, ASDC said currently 18 million work in the Indian automotive industry and 80% of them are lacking relevant skills. The ASDC through industry tie ups is looking at training around 10 million workers over the next five years.

?Our course has been well designed keeping in mind the dire need to train the youth in relevant skills, so as to make them employable in the value chain across the automotive sector,? he said.

Besides imparting technical knowledge, the course is designed in such a way that soft skills, ethics and principles are imparted to the trainees so as to make them better citizens of the country, he added.

ASDC has till now tied up with 200 partners in the automotive industry including industry leaders like Maruti Suzuki, Ashok Leyland, Bosch, Sona Koyo Steering, Eicher and Volvo among others.

The Council has also partnered with state education boards and Central Board of Secondary Education to introduce a curriculum on automobile in school education. Already, states like Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra have introduced in their schools and Karnataka will introduce from 2015-16 academic year, Chaturvedi said.