By April, Delhi will have female bus drivers

Woman drivers will be on the roads of the national capital by April after the Delhi Transport Department approved a proposal on Tuesday to relax the eligibility standards for DTC and cluster bus drivers. No prior driving experience is required for women looking for driving jobs. Woman drivers, on the other hand, will only be used in automatic buses.

Women are more cautious drivers than men, according to the transportation department, and they should be encouraged to join the city's fleet. According to the agency, barely 1% of women are involved in car accidents, and only 1.7 percent are traffic violators.

The decision was reached at a meeting chaired by Ashish Kundra, Principal Secretary, and Transport Commissioner. OP Mishra, Secretary, State Transport Authority, and other senior officials from the department were also present.

The current stage carrier bus requirements were five years for men and no defined qualifications for women. It was also thought that women couldn't drive a bus because they were too hefty to handle. There is one female driver in the city's fleet.

No prior experience is now required to apply for the driving position, according to the new requirement criteria. However, the hiring of women drivers should be subject to one condition: they must complete a minimum of one month of training followed by a test administered by the training institute, Burari, IDTR, and Loni Road, according to the officials.

After passing the one-month training test at the private centre, the lady drivers will be required to complete two more months of in-house training with DTC, which will result in a skill certificate. "The DTC will work as the certification agency in imparting skill test to all heavy passenger vehicle drivers.”