Volkswagen India inks MoU with Rayat Bahra group

CHANDIGARH: Volkswagen India has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Rayat Bahra, a Punjab-based education group, under which the German carmaking giant firm will impart technical training to engineering students. VW has introduced its comprehensive manpower development programme called VG-TAP (Volkswagen Group Technical Education Programme) to have a ready pool of professionals. It is to be mentioned that the Chandigarh-based institution is the first educational group to sign this MoU with Volkswagen. Dietmar Hildebrandt, Director (group service), National Sales Corporation, Volkswagen India Private Limited said, “Through this initiative, Volkswagen will offer training and technical support to the institutes. We will create employable talent not only for Volkswagen India, but also for the industry. We have zeroed in on 10 institutions in India, to sign similar MoUs. It will be in Bangalore, Delhi, Pune and Kochi to stamp with other institutions on the same MoU,” he added. He also said, “Our business in India is growing at good pace and we will hire around 3000 more technicians in our plants in the next five years.” Besides its initiative at the educational front, the Wolfsburg-headquartered company has lined up extensive plans to expand its dealership across the country and is also planning to enhance its market share by 20 per cent by 2018. “We are looking forward to ramp up our dealership network from 150 to 1,000 by 2018, and by that time by which we should have a market share of 20 per cent in comparison to the existing 2.6 per cent,” Dietmar Hildebrandt was quoted as saying to reporters in Chandigarh. He also maintained, “We aim to achieve an annual production target of 1.5 lakh cars by 2013.”