The Directorate-General of Training (DGT) under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) is planning to launch a course on e-vehicles in its Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs).
“As of now, we can foresee an increase in the number of e-vehicles in the next few years. The aim is to train youth to repair, install and assemble them,” an official told BusinessLine
The course — initially to be of short duration — will be launched in 5-10 ITIs within the next four months.
“We are starting with a handful of ITIs because we first want to scale up in cities where manufacturers are likely to launch e-vehicles. Once the basic course is tested in some of the ITIs and a set of trainers are created, scaling up will be easy,” added the official.
Kolkata-based Central Staff Training and Research Institute (CSTRI), part of the DGT, is designing the curriculum of the course. It is also in talks with industry experts for developing the course.
Developing skills
Currently, there are 11,964 ITIs, including 2,284 government and 9,680 private ones, across the country. There are a total of 21 lakh students in these ITIs.
“Apart from developing skills of the workforce in e-vehicles, there will be a need for upskilling of the workshops once the demand picks up,” said Sougata Roy Choudhary, Executive Director, Skill Development, CII.
With increasing pollution in the metros, the concept of e-vehicles would first roll out in these cities. To begin with, there is a need to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem for charging and maintenance of such vehicles, he added.
At a NITI Aayog-called meeting of the two- and three-wheeler industry last week, the government think-tank asked the latter to come up with EV conversion plans within two weeks.
Earlier, a NITI Aayog-led panel recommended that taxi aggregators such as Uber and Ola should convert 40 per cent of their fleet to electric by April 2026.