The Delhi state transport department has announced that women who qualify for the position of driver will first be assigned to low-floor buses after choosing to modify regulations to make public transportation in Delhi more gender-inclusive. Apart from lowering the experience requirements, the government would also remove the necessity for drivers and conductors to have a minimum academic qualification.
“It was felt that the low-floor automatic buses are easy to drive and it has been found statistically that only women are more cautious drivers (only 1 per cent of women are involved in fatal accidents and only 1.7 per cent of traffic violators are women in Delhi). Hence, there is a need for encouraging women to take this as a profession. The experience stipulation in the recruitment rules should not be applicable to women. The women driver will be deployed only on automatic low-floor buses,” according to the minutes of the transport department meeting held on February 15, details of which came out on February 22.
There had been reports that the Delhi administration had decided to ease the rules for recruiting female drivers for the city's 6,900-strong bus fleet, including lowering the minimum height requirement from 159cm to 153cm and reducing the "experience requirements" for women applicants to a month.
The administration has also decided to relax permission terms for commercial driving license holders, which is one of the most recent moves. “The permit conditions for stage carriage vehicles specify that only Commercial Driving License holders with five years can drive a bus. It was decided to reduce this to three years. It has also been decided that the said condition shall be applicable in respect of all stage carriage vehicles for engagement of drivers by an individual owner, cluster or company registered under the Companies Act,” according to the minutes of the meeting.
According to the minutes, it was also determined that chosen women drivers would be required to complete a two-month driving course and acquire a DTC skill test certificate. “The DTC may work as a certification agency for imparting skill training to all heavy passenger vehicles drivers,” the minutes said.
The state transportation agency also ruled that in the case of conductor appointments, the requirement of a minimum educational qualification should be waived. It did, however, request that the DTC and other training institutes ensure that drivers are aware of the meaning of various signs as defined by the Motor Vehicle Act of 1988 and are disciplined on the road.