India’s top luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz India today inaugurated an auto body repair training centre near Chinchwad, Pune in an effort help develop the requisite skill set among youngsters who want to pursue a career in the automotive service industry.

The carmaker has invested Rs 2.65 crore in the training centre, which has been inaugurated in association with Don Bosco Industrial Training Institute in Pune. The auto body repair centre is aimed at lending a fillip to the demand for highly skilled and technically adept manpower, which is crucial to the service sector of the automotive industry.

The focus of the training will be on automotive crash repair and automotive body structure repairs and selected candidates will get an opportunity to hone their technical skill sets with the help of the latest equipment including a Mercedes-Benz C-class provided by the company.

A standard 10th qualified aspirant can also apply for this job-oriented, one-year course, the company said in a release, adding that the trainers for the course have been trained at Mercedes-Benz India body shop.

“India is rich in its manpower, but opportunities and facilities that train and gainfully employ them are by far, few. On the other hand, growth in the automotive industry, changing technology and lowering first hand life-cycle of cars has triggered huge demand for skilled technicians,” Roland Folger, managing director and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India said in a company statement.