Ministry of Road Transport and Highways will train 5,000 heavy vehicle drivers through a refresher course to minimise accidents. The State-of-the-Art facility available with the Krishna District Lorry Owners Association (KDLOA) has been chosen for organising the refresher training programme for 200 of them each day from August 31.
At a press conference here on Monday, the KDLOA President Koneru Venkata Ramesh said that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways official U.D. Bhargava had visited the facility last week and accorded permission to the association to impart refresher training to the drivers at the Model Driving Institute and Research Centre at established at Ambapuram with an investment of Rs.6 crore.
Seven such refresher training programmes would be held at various places in the country, he said. The State Transport Commissioner Sanjay Kumar, Deputy Transport Commissioner A. Mohan and Deputy Commissioner of Police M. Ravindranath Babu and AP Lorry Owners Association President P. Gopalnaidu would participate in the inaugural function at 10 a.m. on August 31 at the Benz Circle.
Drivers would be paid Rs.150 each for two days of training on the latest techniques in driving heavy vehicles and safer ways on the modern roads by following traffic rules.
They would be given a personal accident policy of Rs.1 lakh each. Some of the important aspects to be covered are Traffic Rules, Diesel Saving, and Road Rules.
He said that in 1993, the Model Driving Institute was set up here and since then; more than 50,000 drivers had been imparted training in driving heavy vehicles and all the drivers provided certificates, a health check-up and eye testing done.
Liquor shops
Expressing anguish over mushrooming of liquor shops on National Highways, he said that the government was encouraging drunken driving by permitting liquor shop on the highways.
The Lorry Owners Associations had submitted representation to the Government to take steps to do away with liquor shop on the highways to avoid drunken driving but nothing was being done.
