Maruti to train over 2,000 service personnel at ITIs every year

As part of its CSR activities, Maruti Suzuki India has announced that it will scale up its skill development activities by setting up Automobile Skill Enhancement Centres (ASECs) at 45 government-run Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) across the country. The carmaker has committed Rs 5 crore towards this project.

Each of these centres will be equipped with a model workshop to provide practical training. Together with this, Maruti will also appoint full-time trainers, provide tools and equipment and forge partnerships with local Maruti Suzuki service workshops to upgrade skills of ITI students and make them job-ready.

Nearly 2,100 youths are expected to benefit annually through these ASECs. The trainees will be free to seek employment in any workshop, including those not servicing Maruti Suzuki vehicles.

The Automobile Skill Enhancement Centres are being set up in designated ITIs in Jammu, Srinagar, Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Yamuna Nagar, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Dehradun, Dewas, Durg, Jabalpur, Surat, Godhra, Ankleshwar, Kolkata, Mangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Karimnagar Vijayawada, Kochi, , Calicut, Thrissur and Thiruvananthapuram among others. 

In addition to the ITI curriculum, the students will be given 50 days’ training by MSIL trainers in areas related to car service, repairs and maintenance. Students trained at the ASECs will be awarded an additional skill training certificate.

Commenting on the programme, Pankaj Narula, executive director (Service), Maruti Suzuki. “Through this initiative, Maruti Suzuki wants to contribute to the national effort for skill development and employability. With the growth in number of vehicles on roads, quality repair and maintenance offers a major employment opportunity. Automobile Skill Enhancement Centres will provide hands-on experience to trainees and make them capable of quality service and repair of vehicles.”

Supporting ITIs
Maruti Suzuki says it has two approaches to developing ITI support programs: Adopt an ITI and adopt all trades, and have a focused approach to promote automobile skill training.

In the first approach, the company is working with 29 ITIs in partnership with state governments. Here, the company offers support in infrastructure improvement, faculty training, exposure to manufacturing facilities, training in Japanese work practices like 5S, kaizen and 3G and also soft skills like personality development and team work

In the second approach, the carmaker creates a pool of employable youth by working intensively with students learning the automobile trade. Over 5,500 youth from 88 ITIs have benefitted from this program so far and are employed in service workshops of Maruti Suzuki and other automobile service workshops.