IN the platinum jubilee year of L&T’s Construction & Mining Machinery business (CMB) vertical, its Central Training Centre (CTC) celebrates a milestone too – its silver jubilee.
Formally inaugurated at L&T’s Bangalore Works in July 1995, the CTC has grown from strength to strength and occupies an enviable position in the industry today.
The CTC had made a humble beginning by imparting training to Diploma Engineer Trainees. It then expanded the scope to Graduate Engineer Trainees, customers, dealers, sales and parts teams.
As the vertical grew, the CTC kept pace, developing training modules on Komatsu and Scania products in 1997-98. It opened regional centres at Bahadurgarh, Nagpur, Durgapur and Singrauli – and this gave a big boost to training.
In 2014, it relocated to a spacious facility at Kancheepuram, making it possible to have more classrooms, training on actual machines, a technical lab, model-room and space for operator training.
The introduction of simulators and going the e-way have now made training more user-friendly. The periodic online Skill Inventory Tests and the Advance Technic Contests are result-oriented methods of training-need analysis and development planning.
Over the years, those trained at the CTC have taken up challenging assignments like erection and assembly of large equipment at project sites, besides taking on leadership roles and responsibilities. Every year, it also conducts refresher courses on technical updates for the field team.
It doesn’t end there. To increase its impact on the training landscape, the CTC has joined hands with the Government of India’s Skill India initiative. In the last five years alone, it has issued over 12,000 certifications under its various training schemes and in turn, has played a key role in transforming the lives of people engaged in the construction and mining equipment industry.
Specifically, the RPL-4 Programmes under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana have enabled the CTC to not just impact the industry but also fulfil the social responsibility of producing some of the most competent operators and mechanics across India.
The CTC is now providing skill development opportunities to open up employment avenues for unemployed youth. For instance, it has a pool of 140 excavator operators drawn from unemployed youth. Rising to the challenges posed by the pandemic, it is conducting online classes on product appreciation and technical updates.
Appreciating the initiatives, Mr Arvind K Garg (EVP & Head, L&T's Construction & Mining Machinery) says: “The training centre should continue to focus on skill enhancement, remain updated with the latest technologies in the digital world and use them to touch more and more lives within our customer fraternity and society”.
