Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL), market leader in passenger vehicles, today announced that it will scale up its skill development activities by setting up Automobile Skill Enhancement Centres (ASEC) at 45 government-run Industrial Training Institutes across the country.

Each of these Centres will be equipped with a model workshop to provide practical training. Together with this, the company 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. This will be a corporate social responsibility project of the company. Maruti Suzuki has committed 5 crore towards this cause.

Nearly 2100 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. 

Pankaj Narula, executive director (service), Maruti Suzuki, said, ''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.''

Shares of the company gained Rs 20.4, or 0.54%, to trade at Rs 3,779.05. The total volume of shares traded was 30,938 at the BSE (1.34 p.m., Tuesday).