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Country’s first credit course on ‘Driving Skills and Road Safety Awareness’ started in Pune
The course is aimed in a bid to create ‘road safety awareness’ amongst students and get them involved in the study
In a first, a uniquely designed course with two credit points named ‘Driving Skills and Road Safety Awareness’ has been started in the country in Pune. Any student can enrol for this course started at the G H Raisoni College of Engineering and Management (GHRCEM), Pune, in association with the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO) and Driving Schools’ Association. The course was inaugurated on Monday by Maharashtra transport commissioner Vivek Bhimanwar, who also inaugurated the ‘GHRCEM Driving Training Institute’ at the Wagholi campus. Also present on the occasion were additional transport commissioner Jitendra Patil, deputy regional transport officer Pune Sanjeev Bhor, campus director of GHRCEM professor R D Kharadkar and other senior officials of the state transport department and various other organisations.
Bhimanwar said, “It’s a matter of pride for us as a state to start the first-of-its-kind course not only in Maharashtra but across India for road safety awareness. Today, daily road accidents and deaths in these accidents have become a major issue all over the world and the world is looking towards India for solutions. Each time we have shown our ability but while the world is looking towards us for guidance, we are also a country with the highest number of road accidents and fatalities. Unfortunately, 84% of road accidents can be attributed to the drivers while 80% of the people who die in these accidents are in the age group of 18 to 35 years, which is our young population. We cannot be a world superpower if we do not save each and every life.”
“After every accident, we conduct an analysis of the accident and the reasons behind it are found. It has come to our notice that more than 90% of these accidents are avoidable while a few accidents are due to natural calamities and hence, cannot be avoided. There are many countries where getting a university degree is easy but getting a driving license is difficult. This initiative to start a separate course on this topic will certainly help students and will inspire other colleges and institutions to introduce such courses in future,” he said.
Whereas campus director professor Kharadkar said, “At the institution, we think that apart from technical college and engineering courses, it is necessary to work for the overall development of students and for that reason, this course has been launched at our college. We started this course and soon, enrolment of students for this course will begin at the campus. As there are 4,000 students here, we will try to get a majority of them enrolled for this credits’ course. In fact in the parents’ meeting, there were repeated demands from the parents to start this course as they were concerned about the safety of their children.”
In a bid to create ‘road safety awareness’ amongst students and get them involved in the study, former deputy regional transport officer of the Pune RTO, Sanjay Sasane, had been working on this project along with several educational institutions in the state. “This course is of 18 hours, and two credit points are to be given to the student who successfully completes it. The main objective behind starting this course for college students is to make them understand scientific driving skills, different modes of transport, and vehicle categories; causes of road accidents; defensive driving skills; and most importantly to render road safety awareness a skill with employment possibilities,” Sasane said.
