Madhya Pradesh to Provide Free Professional Driving Training to 300 Women
BHOPAL / In a bid to empower women and help them to be self-reliant, the Madhya Pradesh Transport Department will provide free professional driving training to 300 females from 15 July at the headquarters of 11 regional transport offices (RTOs) in the state. The department will also assist to get them employment.
Transport Commissioner (TC) Mukesh Jain said that the department had formulated a plan to equip women with driving skills as professional drivers, it would not only a step to empower women but also provide employment to them as per their qualification to make Madhya Pradesh a self-sufficient state.
“After getting a huge success of the pilot project, we have decided to carry forward this scheme in the other part of the state. A total of 300 women will be trained under the project in association with the Polytechnic Colleges and ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) and the department will also help them to get employment”, Transport Commissioner Jain told The Sun Today.
The transport department had launched this scheme in the Indore RTO office in January this year as a pilot project. Two hundred women had been trained as professionals to drive a light motor vehicle in ITI Indore. After completing the training programme, all women drivers have got employment in a campus placement conducted at the Training Institute.
In view of the success of the pilot project, Madhya Pradesh minister for Transport, Govind Rajput had given instructions to the officials to implement this scheme across the state while taking a review meeting of the transport department in March month.
Apart from Indore, the RTO offices Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Ujjain, Rewa, Sagar, Khandwa, Dhar, Jhabua and Umaria would be covered under the first phase and a total of 300 women would be trained, after that remaining districts of the state will be taken under the scheme, the TC also said.
The transport officers of the related districts have started the process of taking the applications from the beneficiaries.
Jain informed that he instructed the transport officers the benefits of the scheme should get to needy women and prioritized to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes categories and Covid-19 affected families, in the selection process.
He added that the district collectors had been written to nominate a senior administrative officer in the selection committee so that the selection process could be made transparent.
The training programme will be of about 200 hours, practical and theoretical both the activities will be included in the syllabus.
The TC further added that those who got the training did not require any separate formality to get a driving license. The initiative would not only give an opportunity to women to become self-reliant but also get security to women passengers in public transport.
Apart from driving light motor vehicles, women will also be basic trained to repair vehicles. They will be made aware of road safety rules and equipped with skills to fulfill the requirements of the private sector also, Jain further said “Our effort is to get them with jobs and so that they are self-sufficient,” he also added.
