Hyundai Motor India has announced that it has expanded the scope of its agreement with 25 ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) in India.

This expansion comes after a successful completion of a pilot programme that the carmaker launched in 2012 across five locations, a project which is in line with the government’s Skill India Programme. Almost 95% of trained graduates from Hyundai’s Skill Development Programme (2012-2015) were recruited by Hyundai dealerships in 2015.

Announcing the initiative, Rakesh Srivastava, senior VP (Sales and Marketing), Hyundai Motor India, said, “Hyundai is a stakeholder in India’s progress and a responsible corporate citizen. Our alliance with ITI and vocational institutes is aimed at reducing the skill deficit in the Indian automobile industry’s shopfloors. With this partnership, we are confident that Hyundai will be able to bridge the gap of skilled manpower availability and help the auto Industry to achieve global competitiveness.”

Under the scope of Hyundai’s Skill Development Programme, the company has introduced the latest training methodologies at these 25 ITIs across India. A two-year-long training programme with structured 96-hour content of 27 chapters and workshop practical along with 4 days of exclusive on-the-job-training) at Hyundai dealerships gives students hands-on experience and enables them to become H-Step 1 certified technicians.

Under the aegis of this programme, the two-year curriculum is structured in a manner that in the first year, students study ITI curriculum and Hyundai curriculum in the second year.

The programme has already benefited over 1,000 students at 25 ITIs across the country in centres such as Hyderabad, Lucknow, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Sangli, Dehradun, Ludhiana, Vizag, Kochi and Sonepat.