NEW DELHI: With a view to cashing in on the requirement of skilled professionals for the retail sector, Bharti Resources, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises, on Monday announced its tie-up with Global Retail School (GRS) to impart training to jobseekers in this sector.

"We have entered into a strategic partnership with GRS to bring modern skills, knowledge and progressive training to create employability for young people in the growing retail sector of India,'' Bharti Resources CEO and Executive Director Sanjeev Duggal said.

He said, besides retailing, the company was looking at training workforce in areas like insurance and telecom.

The Indian retail sector would offer around 2.5 lakh jobs in the next two years with 75 per cent of them being customer facing, said Technopak Vice President (Retail and Consumer Goods), Asitava Sen, who is also a member of the advisory board of GRS. In the first year of the alliance, the company is targeting to enrol around 15,000 people in various courses in subjects like retail sales and marketing, visual merchandising and space planning, retail supply chain management, retail management and store operations including others.

Chandigarh-based GRS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cosmo Aviation Training School, known under the brand name Flying Cats. At present, it has 31 centres across India, out of which six are corporate centres and the balance franchisees.

"By 2007 end we plan to take this number to 60 centres across the country, including smaller towns and cities as well,''' GRS Managing Director Priyanka Khosla, who is also Director of National Institute of Fashion Design (NIFD), said.

Bharti is a technical partner in the joint venture, which would provide content and curriculum support for the courses and would act as a consumer of the end product, Mr. Duggal said.

However, the first right of refusal for placement of students would be with Bharti Resources and the students would be free to take up jobs with any company in the industry, he added.

PTI

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail