Periodical in-house training for the employees of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation at its training centre in Pasumalai has started fetching results.
In a bid to improve its service to the commuters, senior officers at the TNSTC (Madurai division) here are imparting training to its employees in batches, in yoga, meditation, counselling and safe practices while driving the buses, said TNSTC General Manager A. Venkatachalam here on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters, he said that the programmes included theory and practical tests by well-trained instructors. This paved way to improve the skills of the employees. Apart from training fresh drivers and conductors, serving employees from different departments too are given training.
There are special classes for accident-prone drivers too, he noted.
Giving the statistics, he said that major accidents (up to Rs 10,000) had fallen from 164 (in 2008 April–March 09) to 89 (2009-10). The number of fatal accidents had declined from 90 to 79, while small accidents had fallen from 427 to 303 and the number of vehicles, which were damaged in the accidents too had come down from 922 to 623, Mr. Venkatachalam added.
The TNSTC (Madurai Division) Managing Director P.P. Rajendran had initiated several schemes that would benefit the Corporation and the user public, he said. In the recent past, safe drivers at the branch levels were recognised and the crew was presented awards. Keeping in mind the need to contain diesel consumption per kilometre, the drivers are trained at regular intervals.
The family members of drivers who were prone to accidents were involved in training.
Recently, accident-prone drivers were asked to visit the injured undergoing treatment in hospitals. This will help the drivers not to commit such mistakes in future.
When asked the use of air-horns, he said that drivers used only low tone electric-horns which had permitted decibels. Divisional Manager A. Venkatachalam, Deputy Managers G, Ramachandran and P. Nagendran who were present said that medals were presented to the crew at SIPCOT, Pudukulam, Kallupatti and Usilampatti branches for good performance on diesel consumption.
The officials said that the number of break-down of buses too had fallen.
On April 20, in the entire division, only one bus at Nagercoil was reported break-down. Maintenance of vehicles at the depots was accorded top priority.
“Achieving accident-free service in the division is our aim and we hope to implement it with the crews' support,” the officials added.
