Transport dept to organise seminar for motor training schools

The need to organise the seminar was felt as Motor Training Schools could play a major role in reducing road accidents by training would-be drivers in a proper way. The seminar will be organised on August 1 at Science City Auditorium. The state transport minister Suvendu Adhikari would also be present in the seminar.

While speaking at the sidelines of the InfraVision East 2016 organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce on Friday, Prof. Bhargab Maitra of IIT-Kharagpur who is also heading the team to find a better way out for the state transport department to issue driving licences, said, that senior officials of the transport department and police officers will be addressing the seminar. He will also be one of the speakers on Monday.

It may be mentioned that the state government has launched “Safe Drive Save Life” campaign with an aim to reduce the rate of road accidents. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had launched the campaign and the seminar is also an integrated part of the project.

During training, would-be drivers go through both theoretical and practical training. In theoretical classes, trainees are supposed to learn about road signs, traffic norms and mechanical parts of vehicles. But in many cases, it was found that training was not provided with much care and time. 

Another problem is that a trainee learns driving in a car fitted with 800 cc engines and later drives those with above 1500 cc. They also get licence as they can drive an 800 cc car. Being untrained to drive cars fitted with heavy engines, the new drivers or owners often meet with accidents when they drive such cars soon after getting licences.

Thus, there should be facility in a motor training school to train would-be drivers in cars fitted with 800 cc engine as well as the ones which come with above 2000 cc. They should be made to learn how to control sensitive steering and accelerator and automatic gear system in high end cars, said an official of the transport department.

Moreover, the motor training schools also help a person to get his or her licence. Thus, the initiative was taken to involve them in the drive to reduce road accidents. The topic of the seminar on Monday would be “Learning Safe Driving” and training school authorities will get suggestions and guidelines that to be followed from now onward.

It may be mentioned that the transport department had engaged IIT Kharagpur in finding out a solution to streamline the licence giving procedure before the ‘Safe Drive Save Life’ campaign had started. The state transport minister had said while addressing the inauguration programme of “Safe Drive Save Live” campaign that a data from Burdwan district authorities had shown that only 25 out of 2,434 applicants to get licence had failed till May 16. Stating it to be something unbelievable, he had stated that a change in the system of giving licence was needed and the IIT was engaged to find a solution.