E-Paper
U.P.: Women drivers making their presence felt on Prayagraj roads
As per RTO Prayagraj records, between 2017 and 2022 (till June 30, 2022), a total of 14,731 women got their driving licences issued
The number of women drivers in smart city Prayaraj is rising each passing year. As per the data of local regional transport office (RTO), even during the pandemic hit past two years a large number of female drivers got their driving licences made and the trend is continuing. However, as compared to men, the count still remains quite low, the data show.
As per RTO Prayagraj records, between 2017 and 2022 (till June 30, 2022), a total of 14,731 women got their driver licences issued. “This included 1651 in 2017, 1650 in 2018, 2419 in 2019, 4203 in 2020 and 2913 in 2021 besides 1985 till June 30 this year,” said an RTO official.
However, during this very period, 1,39,184 men got their driving licences made, including 13,698 in 2017, 16,965 in 2018, 31,589 in 2019, 43,072 in 2020 and another 33,860 in 2021. “As a result, the count of women drivers getting their driving licences made as compared to men still remained between just 12.05% and 7.65% between 2017 and 2022,” the official added.
“There has been a steady increase in the number of women getting their driving licences made in Prayagraj during the last few years. The count of women drivers driving both two-wheelers and four-wheelers is increasing on the roads of Sangam city each year,” said Rajeev Chaturvedi, ARTO (administration), RTO, Prayagraj.
A talk with women drivers who got their driving licences recently shows that their reasons for it vary from wish to become independently mobile, job needs to family necessity among others.
Shweta Jaitley, a resident of Pritam Nagar colony and a primary school teacher, recently got her driver’s licence. “Initially, I had to depend on my husband to travel by car. He is an officer in the power department and often remains busy and this posed a challenge. I managed for some time with cabs etc. However, then I decided to learn driving a car and took a month’s training in a driving school and today I can drive,” she said.
Vandana Singh, a resident of Naini, has been driving for nearly 12 years now. “I used to work in a company in Gurugram and my driver or husband used to drive me to workplace. However, one day my daughter became sick and neither my husband was home nor could I get my driver. So, I had to struggle and rush her to hospital in a taxi. That day I decided to learn driving and started driving after learning for a month at a training school,” said Vandana, who is now a lecturer in an intermediate college in Soraon, Prayagraj and drives to college every day in her car.
Even those running driving schools testify to the growing interest among women to learn driving. “Every month five to six women learn to drive by taking admission to my centre. Right now, I am teaching 20 women how to drive. There are two courses of fifteen days and one month each in which women are learning to drive a car,” said Suresh Kumar, who runs a driving training centre in Mundera locality of Prayagraj.
Meanwhile, number of vehicles also continues to rise on Prayagraj roads each passing day. As per the ARTO (administration) Rajiv Chaturvedi, 93,095 two-wheelers were registered in 2019 in Prayagraj while 12,255 people also got registration of their four-wheelers done during this very period. Similarly, in 2020, 69,718 two-wheelers and 9,647 four-wheelers were registered.
