Ms. Vinita Aggarwal, Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), has lauded the role played by the Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) and has appealed to industry to increasingly employ manpower trained and certified by ASDC.
Addressing the ASDC Annual Conclave in New Delhi, which was attended by nearly 500 delegates from across the automotive skilling eco system and the larger fraternity of automobile & auto parts manufactures, sales and after sales dealerships as well as experts in driver training and road safety domain, Ms. Aggarwal observed that the signing of several new agreements with industry partners was a positive sign indicating ASDC’s industry connect. She also appealed to the industry to take advantage of the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) and scale up the number of apprentices.
In his welcome address, Mr. Jayant Davar, ASDC President, recounted the journey of ASDC that started when it became the very first sector council in India. The Indian auto industry is facing multiple challenges in the form of Manufacturing 4.0-related transformation on the shopfloors, as also the push towards electric mobility. However, he said the industry is resilient enough and will continue to grow and create jobs for lots of skilled people.
He also expressed confidence that ASDC will be able to meet the sector’s expectations. It has already laid a solid foundation by way of setting a large number of qualification standards, a nationwide network of training centres, 700 + certified trainers and around a 1,000 assessors.
In his address, Mr. Sunil K. Chaturvedi, ASDC Chief Executive Officer, said that the Council has been able to obtain a lot of support from industry and the engagement is only growing deeper by the day.
At the Conclave, ASDC signed a series of agreements with industry, including with Hero Moto, Yamaha, SIKA, Akzo Noble, and also announced future plans with 3M India in skills related to value-added services and in car care products.
At the day-long function, ASDC signed several agreements, including the one with the Uttarakhand State Skill Development Mission and another with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The UNDP-ASDC alliance is focused on creating skill development and livelihood opportunity for girls and women in areas outside the traditional “sewing and packaging” arena.
Industry Academia disconnects is a topic of concern for the country. In order to take steps towards addressing this issue and with an objective to increase employability of graduating students, ASDC signed MoUs with four major institutions – Manipal University, Jaipur, VelTech and SRM Chennai and BM Munjal University, Gurgaon.
Mr. Chaturvedi observed on the occasion that the success of ‘Make in India’ is crucially dependent on what he called as “Think in India”, which essentially means skills in higher education. That is where these four important agreements would play a big role in producing skilled graduates for the automotive sector.
There were three panel discussions that produced lively debates among Indian and overseas experts. The panel on “Smart Mobility and Smart Manufacturing” was anchored by Tata Motors’ Chief Human Resource Officer, Gajendra Chandel. Industry leaders, including Duttatreya Gaur from BoSCH, Suman Bose from Siemens, IV Rao from Maruti Suzuki, Kiran Deshmukh from Sona BLW and Ruediger Heimof Fraunhoferdebated intensely on the topic and concluded that the future would expect all stakeholders to be “super flexible”, and there will be a lot more thrust on “digitization”.
Another panel deliberated on skills required for “Safer & Superior Mobility Experience”. It covered aspects of sales, aftersales service and road safety. The panel was moderated by Hella MD Rama Pandey.
The Joint Secretary in the Department of Heavy Industry, Mr. Vishwajit Sahay, spoke on the limitation of regulations and therefore urged the industry to come forward and prepare for the transition to new technologies. He also spoke about training for safety and the NATRIP centre at Silchar.
Panellists Mahesh Rajoria from Maruti Suzuki, Ramki Ramakrishnan from Tata Motors, Ajay Jain from 3M, Deepak Sharma of Wuerth India, Birendra Bisht of Intello and Nitin Dossa from WIAA the discussed key issues like Safer Mobility and dwelt on how prepared the sector is to face the fast changing world and the need and availability of requisite skillsets.
The Conclave carried the theme “Skilling for Growth and Enabling Livelihoods”, and appropriately the third panel focussed on Livelihoods.
The action-packed day came to a close with ASDC Vice President Nikunj Sanghi proposing a vote of thanks.
Later, at the ASDC AGM and Governing Council meeting, he took over as the President for next year.