The Centre will soon recommend that States lease out five acres of land for one rupee in order to help set up driver training institutes in the hinterland, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said here on Tuesday. The Centre, in turn, will provide a financial assistance of ₹1 crore per training Centre to the State governments.
“We will soon roll out fresh guidelines recommending State governments to lease out their land in rural areas at Re. 1 for a 30-year-period to set up driver training institutes,” Mr. Gadkari said at the sidelines of a programme on road safety organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.
In 2015, 1.46 lakh people were killed in road accidents in India which translates into 400 road deaths per day — an increase by 4.6 percent from 2014, according to official estimates. Most of the road accidents, around 77 per cent, occur due to drivers’ fault. While overspeeding of vehicles caused 61 percent of the deaths, intake of alcohol or drugs resulted in 6.4 per cent killings.
“There is a shortage of 22 lakh drivers in the country and training them is essential. Focus should be drifted away from metro cities like Delhi and Mumbai to the hinterland where conditions are worse,” Mr. Gadkari said.
Since 2002, the Centre has sanctioned 25 model driver training schools out of which 16 are functional, according to Road Accidents in India 2015, a report released by Road Transport and Highways Ministry. The Centre had planned to set up 10 institutes of driving and research along with 25 regional training centres during 2012-17 but the Centre has sanctioned four such institutes so far, the report added.
The Ministry had earlier issued guidelines for 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) which suggested that 10-15 acres land be earmarked by states to set up training institutes in tier-I cities and at least three acres land in tier-II cities. According to the plan, the training institutes would require infrastructure facilities such as classrooms with teaching aids and multimedia projector for handling theory classes on traffic rules along with testing tracks.
“The Motor Vehicles Act has neglected driver training. Most of the training centres in cities work as agents to give out licenses by charging a fee. There should be vocational studies on driving,” said S.P. Singh, senior fellow and coordinator at Indian Foudnation of Transport Research and Training.
