New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS): To promote various skill development programs, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) said Thursday that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Tata Motors.

"The move to collaborate with NSDC is to create employment opportunities for educated youth of the country by providing them with skillful practical knowledge of vehicle operations and service," said Ravindra Pisharody, executive director (commercial vehicle), Tata Motors.

"The scheme also enables us to plug in this skilled and knowledgeable set of trained youth, into our vast and growing commercial vehicle network, helping us sustain our service levels."

According to NSDC, the collaboration will encourage and facilitate skill development programs in the automotive sector.

The pilot programme of the project is envisioned to start with five schools with an average of 50 students per school, the ‘automobile’ skill will be introduced as one of the vocational subjects for the 11th and 12th standard students.

"The Automotive industry in India has been growing around 14 percent CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) for the last 10 years and will require around 15 million skilled manpower in the next 10-odd years," said Dilip Chenoy, managing director and chief executive, NSDC.

"Keeping it in mind, this is another major step towards bridging this skill gap and integrating employability skillwith the school education."

NSDC added that additionally it will work with Tata Motors on driver training programmes.