Retail sector renews hopes of jobless youth

Bharti Walmart training centre provides ray of hope to unemployed youngsters; 2,044 trainees land jobs in retail outlets. Training free of cost

AMRITSAR: The Bharti Walmart training centre here, which came into being in December 2008, provides a ray of hope to many young boys and girls who after passing class 12 are not in a position to study further and are in dire need of jobs.

Not only class 12 passouts but even graduates who cannot get jobs are also turning to this centre for training, which could land them with jobs in one of the many retail outlets in the city or elsewhere.

This centre is being jointly run by Centum Learning and Bharti Walmart, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Walmart, on the premises of Mai Bhago Government Polytechnic. After the success of this venture, two other such centres were opened Delhi and Karnataka in collaboration with the governments of these states.

“This is a programme aimed at bridging the shortage of skilled resources in the rapidly growing retail sector by empowering the youth from traditionally economically weaker sections of the society. Since its launch in 2008, we have imparted vocational training to around 9,000 students at the three centres,” said Sanjeev Duggal, CEO and executive director of Centum Learning, while talking to HT over the phone.

The primary task of these training centres is to create a trained workforce for the retail industry, which will help bring inclusive growth in the society. In the coming years, the focus would be to train and create more women in retail jobs to enable them to have a fulfilling and sustainable career path.

Of the total 3,244 students of the centre who have got jobs, 2,044 are from Amritsar alone, while 1,066 are from Delhi and the remaining from Karnataka.

Students undergo a stringent selection, training and certification process based on a revolutionary employability model. The training centres run three short-term vocational programmes, to equip candidates to become floor associates, business development associates and team leaders. Many successful candidates have established the effectiveness of the training model by joining well-known companies and brands such as Bharti Airtel, Easyday, Best Price Modern Wholesale, Big Bazaar, Landmark, Titan Watches, Titan Eye, KFC, Pizza Hut, Shoppers Stop, Metro Cash and Carry, among others.

Centum Learning has been instrumental in designing and developing customised curriculum for the training centres in collaboration with Walmart. Successful candidates are co-certified by Bharti Walmart and Centum Learning on the basis of written evaluations conducted at the end of the programme. All enrolled candidates, on the basis of a written test and interview, are awarded 100% scholarships by Bharti Walmart, making this training free of cost to the students.