The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers will shortly setup Asia's first 'online university' to cater to the education needs of the booming automobile sector fraternity.
The courses -- being started as part of the Automotive Mission Plan 2006-2016 wherein e-learning has been identified as a major initiative for future growth -- will comprise basic training modules for freshers as well as special courses for upgradation of skills to the existing workforce.
SIAM is associating with US-based institute, Adayana, the course content provider, while the National Institute of Automotive Service and Excellence will certify this courses.
The AMP has 25 key recommendations focused on attracting an incremental investment of Rs 1,60,000 or Rs 1,600 billion to Rs 1,80,000 crore or Rs 1,800 billion ($35-40 billion) over the next 10 years. The turnover of the industry is expected to touch Rs 6,67000 crore (Rs 6,670 billion) in 2016 -- 4 times the current turnover.
Given these expectations, the new centre of higher learning is gearing to meet the manpower requirement of the Indian automotive sector, which is expected to absorb an additional 25 lakh jobs -- both directly and indirectly -- over the next 10 years.
SIAM will begin with half-a-dozen online courses -- right from machine tool training that's a shopfloor need, to devising long-term