West Bengal's Department of Technical Education & Training, Tata Motors Ltd. and West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance the technical skills of the local youth in Singur, the site of the small car project.

Tata Motors Ltd's senior general manager - corporate HR & head CSR, M B Paralkar, Department of Technical Education & Training's secretary S C Tiwary and WBIDC managing director Debasis Som signed the agreement.

As part of the agreement Tata Motors will set up a training centre at Singur in six months for practical and theoretical training on automobiles in line with training at existing Tata plants, state's commerce and industry minister Nirupam Sen said.

Four more institutes will train local youths - ITI Howrah, ITI Hooghly, ATI Dasnagar and Ramakrishna Mission Shilpamandir at Belurmath.

The course will either be of nine months for freshers or of six months for those with four months prior training at Belurmath.

After completion of the course, trainees will be trained at the Tata Motors plant.

At the end of the training period, trainees would appear for a test at respective institutes for the State Council of Vocational Training certificate.

A total of 358 local youths will get training.

Earlier, 17 ITI trained local youths had qualified in the Tata Motors aptitude test and they are currently undergoing training at the Tata Jamshedpur plant.

The lot of 358 also includes 122 trainees selected on the basis of Tata Motors aptitude test from the lot of original 176 candidates sent by WBIDC to Belurmath for 4 months of training.

A total of 2,531 candidates had registered at the WBIDC Singur camp office for training of which 600 were women.