From scary roads to steep climbs, the PSC Bose Memorial Driving School here near Nandigama in Krishna district offers all necessary facilities to enable young men from the poorest of poor families to learn the nuances of driving free of cost. The project is described as a small attempt from entrepreneurs well established in transport business to relive memories of their late father “Mechanic Bose”.
The Parvataneni Subhash Chandra Bose Memorial Trust is running the driving school to fulfil the dreams of Parvataneni Subhash Chandra Bose to provide free training in driving to poor boys and help them gain employment on their own. Developed over a period of five years, the tracks at the driving school run for a total of nearly 3.4 km with most advanced features for learning and testing. The facilities were inaugurated by All India Motor Transport Congress president G.R. Shanmugappa.
Encouraging trend
P. Ramesh and P. Sudheer, trustees of the PSC Bose Memorial Trust, said on Monday that they have been offering free training, boarding and lodging to learners of driving since 2001. Nearly 5,500 poor young men had benefited from the free residential driving training programme. The tracks developed in the school would give a fillip to their efforts to encourage and attract more youngsters from poor families to the field of driving.
Mr. Sudheer said that the need for training drivers came from the fact that 90 per cent of the world's accidents took place in low income and middle income countries due to poor training of drivers, ill-planned roads and lax law enforcement. “A UN report says that road traffic injuries will rise further to become the fifth leading cause of death in the world. So we have to make collective efforts to change the situation,” he said.
Located about 60 km north-west of Vijayawada near Nandigama, the PSC Bose Driving School has facilities such as a 0.75-km-high hill, hair pin bends, dips, ghat section, blind curves, water driving, ‘S' turn, ‘Y' junction and so on.
Mr. Sudheer said that their founder the late Bose always strived for transport industry workers and their welfare, which was the driving force behind their efforts to contribute their mite to the automobile industry by helping in creating of livelihoods and promote driving as a worthy way of life.
