Motor vehicle officials help family of one of the HS top scorers in S Dinajpur

kolkata/balurghat: The Regional Transport Office (RTO) at Balurghat in South Dinajpur helped the father of Srijita Basak who ranked fourth in Higher Secondary Examination 2023 conducted by the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) to get registration and other documents for his e-rickshaw.

Srijita, a student of Dangarhat High School in South Dinajpur, is a resident of Agachha village under Dangarhat post office in South Dinajpur. She aspires to appear for civil services examination in the future and wants to study geography. She will take admission at the Balurghat College.

Her father Sujit Basak drives an e-rickshaw in the area. He had started driving one during the pandemic, when the demand for his taxi service had dropped significantly. “I have to provide education to my two daughters and fetch food for the family at the end of the day. Driving a taxi was becoming futile as the number of trips had reduced significantly and things came to a halt with the lockdown, which was declared in March 2020,” Basak said. Basak got the e-rickshaw for Rs 60,000 by availing loan. Earlier, e-rickshaws could be driven with documents provided by local panchayat or municipality but with the increase in vehicles in the regions, the state had made it compulsory for the owners to get it registered with the RTO. Basak did not have enough money for the registration work. After Srijita secured the fourth position, Sandip Saha, a Regional Transport Officer came to know about the situation and decided to stand beside the family. He helped Basak to get the registration and documents of the e-rickshaw. The entire cost of which was contributed by the motor vehicle officials and Saha. The registration document was handed over to the father on Friday evening.

“Struggling with financial hardship, Srijita’s success is a big thing. I came to know that her father has an e-rickshaw which does not have a registration document. So, we thought if something can be done for her father,” Saha said, while speaking to a group of journalists. Saha has been transferred from the district and will leave on Monday. Srijita feels happy that her success helped her father get the paper works done. “I always said that I wanted to do social work and do something for the underprivileged people in future. Sandip sir showed me how one can stand beside the family and help them,” Srijita said.