Bharti Walmart, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Walmart, has opened its seventh Bharti Walmart training centre in Maharashtra at Jalna in public-private partnership with the state government, to train the youth, free-of-cost, in retail skills.
Speaking on the occasion, Murali Lanka, Senior Vice President, Operations, Bharti Walmart, said: “The retail sector in India is growing at an exponential rate and therefore provides tremendous growth opportunities. The past few years have seen several companies starting their operations in India. However, the industry lacks the talent pool with required skill sets to leverage this huge potential. Bharti Walmart training centres aim to bridge this gap by imparting training on various aspects of retailing to under-privileged youth making them job-ready for their first employment in the retail sector. With the launch of our first training centre in Maharashtra, we hope to empower the youth of the state by making them skilled and providing economic opportunities.”
The Maharashtra government’s campaign of reaching out to people of rural and semi-rural areas of the state through a “mobilising van” will spread awareness about the Bharti Walmart training centre in Jalna district. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Bharti Walmart and the Maharashtra government on February 15, 2012, to launch three Bharti Walmart training centres in the state at Thane, Aurangabad, and Jalna.
According to the company officials, the training curriculum at the centres will be based on Walmart Stores global practices and will be implemented through Centum Learning. Successful candidates will be certified by Bharti Walmart.
Bharti Walmart currently runs three Bharti Walmart training centres in public-private partnership with the respective state governments at Amritsar, Delhi, and Bangalore, and three training centres at its “best price modern wholesale stores” in Zirakpur, Jalandhar, and Ludhiana. The company claims to have trained over 10,400 people at existing centres and nearly 4,000 campus placements in India.
Bharti Walmart operates wholesale cash-and-carry and back-end supply chain management solutions in India to serve small retailers, manufacturers, and farmers. The joint venture is expected to open a total of 12-15 new “best price modern wholesale stores” in India in 2012. Currently, there are 17 such stores located in Amritsar, Zirakpur, Jalandhar, Kota, Bhopal, Ludhiana, Raipur, Indore, Vijayawada, Meerut, Agra, Lucknow, Jammu, Guntur, Aurangabad, Bhatinda, and Amravati.
