Carrying forward its commitment to youth empowerment, Godrej Appliances inaugurates 29th Godrej Disha Excellence Center 

Chandigarh: Godrej & Boyce, the flagship company of the Godrej group today announced that its business unit Godrej Appliances, India’s leading home appliance manufacturer, has opened its 29th Excellence Centre for technical training in the city of Goa, in association with Montfort Academy, working relentlessly towards its commitment to empowering rural youth by training them with quality technical skills and job-oriented trades. The excellence center is part of the ongoing ‘Godrej Disha’ initiative – the vocational training program of the group -and aims at improving lives of India’s underprivileged youth by training them in skilled employment, in line with the Government’s National Skill Development Mission. 

Montfort Academy is a premier education institute, with 23 years of academic excellence with distinctive academic profile. The new centre will conduct training programs for college students, underprivileged youth in Goa, apart from Godrej Appliances’ ASP technicians. The training programs ranges from 15 days to 3 months duration and are designed to impart know how on repairing of refrigerator, washing machine, microwave oven and air conditioner. 

Chief Minister of Goa, Shri Pramod Sawant, inaugurated the new excellence centre in the presence of Mr. Gregory K. Paulose, Regional Service Manager, Godrej Appliances along with Fr. Roland Coelho SJ, Provincial Supervisor, Montfort Academy. In addition to the content and curriculum for the training, the excellence centre will receive support in terms of tools, equipment, spare parts and products from Godrej Appliances. 

As per the India Skill Report 2021, employability of the youth in India has decreased from 47.38% in 2019 to 45.9% in 2021. The 2019 edition of ISR suggests that only 29.46% of ITI graduates are employable. Through Godrej Disha, Godrej Appliances is trying to address this skill gap by providing high-quality vocational training in collaboration with renowned training institutes that will allow our underprivileged youth to be employable as appliance service technicians. 

Speaking on this occasion, Mr. Ravi Bhat, National Head – Service, Godrej Appliances said, “Our industry is undergoing significant changes in technology and customer expectation has been climbing up.  Hence the demand for skilled technicians will increase proportionately. The on-going pandemic has also impacted the employment opportunities across the nation for the past year. As a responsible corporate, we introduced these affiliated programs focused on building employability and help instil an entrepreneurial spirit among the trainees. We are elated to share that we have successfully added over 65,000 skilled youth to the appliance industry by 2020. Our Disha initiative strives towards bridging the employability gap, by specifically targeting the underprivileged youth.”

Fr. Roland Coelho SJ, Provincial Supervisor, Montfort Academy further added, “Equipping the youth with skills that can help them become employable is a high priority in our country. We are privileged to be associated with a trusted brand as Godrej. Apart from our students, the partnership will immensely benefit the economically weaker and socially disadvantaged youth and empower them through the acquisition of skills relevant to the industry, leading to employment, entrepreneurship or community enterprise.”