Central government proposes ambitious driver training institutes under 12th Five-Year Plan

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has drawn up an ambitious driver training project to train drivers and to improve road safety.

Under this programme, each state in the country will have at least one model driver training institute over the next 2-3 years. These will be spread across 10-15 acres offering residential facilities as well as facilities for training the trainers.

These institutes will also monitor and guide smaller training schools in the region. This was revealed by Rajeev Lochan, director of road safety, to Autocar Professional. “Fortunately we have 16 such schools that are already functional. The government has sanctioned about 23 institutes so in the coming two to three years we will have more such schools,” he added.

Currently in Delhi there are three such big institutes, one run by Maruti Suzuki India with Central and State government support, in addition to the one run by Ashok Leyland. Since the government lacked formal training expertise, automotive companies were roped in to collaborate in the initiative and they were more than willing to run them on sustainable lines. 

“We need to train a crore of people each year and the capacity of these schools is very limited,” pointed out Lochan. He mentioned that in the Parliament today that Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari had said that MoRTH would help to set up 1,000 more smaller schools in the districts that could work together with the Regional Transport Office and help them in training as also in tests for issuing driver licenses.

Interestingly, 16 government-sponsored driver training institutes are functional already with 3 being operational in Delhi since the past 5-6 years and in the States since the last 1-2 years. The target is to set up one such school in each State within three years. In 2015, the Ministry sanctioned institutes in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Orissa. Work on these projects has commenced through the State government, with tendering for construction also kicking off. Land has already been acquired with construction set to start soon.

Funding by the Central government to the tune of Rs 17 crore will be extended to each institute under the 12^th Five-Year Plan. “We have also catered for smaller institutes which can be set up in smaller areas with a budget of Rs 5 crore.  As soon as we receive the proposal we scrutinise it and sanction the project,” says Lochan.

But a challenge remains of getting sufficient people to train in the government and private sectors and this anomaly will continue till such time as the drivers don’t feel the need to get trained before getting driving licenses.

Hence, MoRTH is working on putting in place regulations to make the driving licensing system more stringent to ensure that only those who have adequate knowledge of road rules and driving are given the license. But driver training forms only one aspect of road safety with other necessary aspects being its strict enforcement and the need to improve the engineering of roads in the country. 

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