12 percent skills gap in Indian auto sector

New Delhi, February 9, 2013: The Indian automotive sector has a 12 percent skills gap. This was stated by Dilip Chenoy (pictured), who heads the National Skills Development Council (NSDC), at the Human Resources session of the seminar held at the ACMA-Automechanika trade fair.

Speaking about the aftermarket, he said that jobs in the aftermarket will be created in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and in rural areas and this will generate non-migratory jobs.

The meet was also addressed by the head of the Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) which hopes to have its national occupational standards ready. CEO Sunil Chaturvedi said ASDC will contact 200 organisations between now and April 2013. He was speaking at the last session of the seminar on HR. He said that national occupational standards (NOS) have been based on standards developed by the NSDC. The NOS that will be developed pertain to R&D, sales and service-related aspects, he added. Incidentally, the ASDC has identified machining technician skills as the critical and immediate need of the industry.

In his address, the CEO also broached the challenges of the sector and said that in comparison to auto-based skilling, many of those who opt for skills training prefer IT and security areas.

Overall, the challenges of skilling are several and Chaturvedi said that a lot of those who aspire for jobs in this segment come from the disadvantaged sections of society. In addition, there are issues in the eco-system such as obsession with professional degrees and the fact that low wages have generated poor esteem.

BRIAN DE SOUZA