Police happy with women constables' safe driving; 25 male constables involved in accidents over past year
Police happy with women constables' safe driving; 25 male constables involved in accidents over past year
Twenty-Eight women constables recruited a year ago have proved that they are better drivers than men. They have not met with a single accident as yet, while their male counterparts have been involved in a few.
As a result, the Pune Police Motor Transport Depot has now decided to induct 15 more women police constables for police vehicle duty.
The idea is to ultimately reach the mark of at least 30 per cent policewomen on driver duty.
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| Constable Pratibha Bhokase at the wheel of a police jeep. |
"We have 415 drivers in which 28 are women police constables," said Senior Police Inspector Rajendra Sutar, Head, Motor Transport Depot.
"We are conducting training for 15 new recruits at the Shivajinagar Police Ground since last week, where the Motor Transport Department is located."
Training themSutar said that the 15 women police constables have been given non-permanent licences for the training.
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"We have started the training on dual clutch break system on Ambassadors, Sumo and Eicher mini-trucks," said Sutar.
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"Initial training for driving these vehicles has begun at the police ground and will be later conducted on the city roads."
Sutar is sure that all these new recruits will get permanent licences in a month.
He said the experience with women drivers has been quite good. According to the Motor Transport Department, none had met with an accident, while 25 male drivers had met with accidents over the past year.
"The women cover areas in Hadapsar, Swargate and Dattawadi. In fact, some of them are even driving for police bandobast or nakabandi purpose," he added.
Police Constable Pratibha Bhokase, who has completed a year as a driver working with the Special Branch at the city police commissionerate, said: "I am quite comfortable while driving and work at least 12 hours a day and sometimes stretch it even further.
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These jeeps have no power steering but I manage and it's fine even if I have to drive for long distances." Kusum Dev, the first woman police sub-inspector in the state, said that women can do anything better than men.
"When women can become pilots, navigate ships then why can't they drive police vehicles? It is really good that women police constables are driving police vans and jeep with utmost ease," she said.
| City women cops beat Mumbai counterparts |
| City women police constables learnt driving about 16 months ago; they have stolen a march over Mumbai women police constables in this regard.
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The first batch of nine women constables who completed their training in driving was honoured by Home Minister RR Patil at the Police Club in Mumbai.
"Our women are much ahead of others and now most of them drive to Mumbai many times with our vehicles," said Senior Police Inspector Rajendra Sutar, head, Motor Vehicle Depot. |
