Auto Nagar workers find little hope in State government’s plans for upskilling the workforce

Most of the  technicians are unlettered and the thought of a skill training session sounds daunting to them, says a worker at Vijayawada’s Auto Nagar.
| Photo Credit: KVS GIRI

Soon, a Centre of Excellence would be established through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode near Auto Nagar in Vijayawada to upgrade the skills of existing technicians, said NTR District Collector G. Lakshmisha.

The Collector had announced at the recent Collectors’ Conference that steps are being taken to strengthen 1 lakh workforce in Auto Nagar. Mr. Lakshmisha told The Hindu that the process of finding a suitable site for the centre in or around Auto Nagar is already under way. “The State government wants to support the workforce institutionally, by providing them with the required skillset that meets the global standards and prepares them for the competitive world,” he said.

The move would also address the concerns of the workforce who find themselves staring at an uncertain future due to upgradation of vehicles, he added.

However, the government’s plans of setting up an institute has elicited little excitement from technicians, as many are unlettered and for whom the thought of a skill training session sounds daunting. “We do not even know how to write a quotation,” says Suresh, a technician in Auto Nagar.

While there was a time when Auto Nagar, considered the second biggest automotive hub in South Asia, used to be a beehive of activity, there has been a lull in the business for the past few years. While finding work has become difficult for many technicians, on the other and no youngster is willing to work here.

Further, the technicians in the Auto Nagar lack the skills required to handle a BS VI model, which comes with new digitised features. “The industry is filled with middle-aged to elderly men, who know little about operating a smart phone or a laptop,” says Suresh, who is in his 40s.

Auto Nagar Technicians’ Association (ATA) president R. Venkata Ramana Rao, known also as Babji, says: “Most of us started working when we were 8 or 9 years old. We honed our skills through years of hard work.” In the 2000s, when the State government offered fee reiumbursement for engineering students, it encouraged many to go for higher studies. It was then that the decline of workforce began, “Why would anyone, who is educated, want to work in field such as this,” he adds.

He says even those have completed courses from Industrial Training Institutes these days prefer a eight-hour job to a role that requires them to do back-breaking work. “The younger generation wants the easy way. But this is something that requires lots of hard work,” he says, adding that the State government should think about making industrial training a part of formal education for children from Class IV.

That can be one of the solutions, Mr. Babji says, expressing little confidence in the State government’s plan to provide training for the existing workforce.