Low-floor buses for women drivers
NEW DELHI: After deciding on relaxing norms to make operations of public transport in Delhi more gender-inclusive, the state transport department has said that women who qualify for the post of drivers will initially be deployed in low-floor buses. Apart from relaxing the experience criteria, the government is also going to waive off the requirement of a minimum education qualification for drivers and conductors.
“It was felt that the low-floor automatic buses are easy to drive and it has been found statistically that only women are more cautious drivers (only 1% of women are involved in fatal accidents and only 1.7% of traffic violators are women in Delhi). Hence, there is a need for encouraging women to take this as a profession. The experience stipulation in the recruitment rules should not be applicable to women. The women driver will be deployed only on automatic low-floor buses,” according to the minutes of the transport department meeting held on February 15, details of which came out on Tuesday.
On February 12, HT reported about the Delhi government’s decision to relax the norms to recruit female drivers for its 6,900-strong bus fleet in the city, including reducing the minimum height needed from 159cm to 153cm and cutting the “experience criteria” to a month for women applicants.
Among the latest decisions, the government has also decided to relax permit terms for commercial driving licence holders. “The permit conditions for stage carriage vehicles specify that only Commercial Driving License holders with fiveyears can drive a bus. It was decided to reduce this to three years. It has also been decided that the said condition shall be applicable in respect of all stage carriage vehicles for engagement of drivers by an individual owner, cluster or company registered under the Companies Act,” according to the minutes of the meeting.
According to the minutes, it has also been decided to make it mandatory for the selected women drivers to undergo a two-month driving training and obtain a skill test certificate from the DTC.