India's largest passenger car maker adopted 22 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) across various states and trained over 12,000 students and 350 instructors during the financial year 2024. Maruti Suzuki has upgraded some ITI labs to provide specialised training to ITI students and trainers to work on production lines.
"In skill development, the company is working towards creating livelihood opportunities for Indian youth by imparting training in relevant skills through the Japan India Institute for Manufacturing (JIM) set up by the company and by adopting 22 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) nationwide," Maruti Suzuki said in its annual report.
India's automotive industry is undergoing a rapid transformation with the emergence of a variety of alternate fuel options. This calls for a significant change in the required skill set, focusing on new technologies, digitalisation and sustainability.
Maruti Suzuki also supported Automobile Skill Enhancement Centres in 31 ITIs in trades including a mechanic motor vehicle, auto body repair and auto body paint to improve the quality of manpower by providing specialised training in automotive servicing, maintenance, and vehicle repair.
"During the reporting period (FY24), over 1,500 students were trained through the ASECs. Additionally, ‘High Voltage’ (Hybrids and EV) training equipment were set up in around 100 it is," the company said.
Meanwhile, technology development is playing a critical role at the company as it implements Maruti 3.0 strategy. While Suzuki Motor Corp is going ahead with its own R&D company that concentrates on developing new technologies, Maruti Suzuki is focusing more on strengthening its capabilities on the current conventional technologies.
"Our engineering manpower has now become about 2,500. The Rohtak facility is fully functional. We are also urging all our vendors to strengthen their own engineering capabilities, reduce dependence on imports and accelerate exports," the company said.
The automaker is likely to add a significant number of skilled workforce to its manpower as it plans to almost double its annual production capacity to 4 million units by the end of this decade. Maruti Suzuki has plans to offer a wide range of products at different price points with an array of technologies.
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