3,400 DTC drivers, conductors to be trained in Gurgaon

By the time the Commonwealth Games get underway, around 3,400 DTC bus drivers and conductors will have undergone a sea change in their heavy Haryanavi accent and their behaviour.

Their rough accent and tough posturing is seen as something that is likely to make foreign guests and sportspersons uncomfortable.

Starting February 1, these 3,400 men--deputed to ferry the foreign athletes and officials on specially-run luxury buses between the games venue and accommodations--will head to the Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) complex in Gurgaon. Here, they will be given lessons on personality development skills, including spoken English and gender sensitization as well as stress management.

“We have not only designed the course module for the DTC bus drivers and conductors but have also offered them our site to train them on various soft skills. They would be trained in batches of 40 each in three-day programme capsules starting February 1 in Gurgaon. The training will continue till October. However, the DTC will have to pay for the training and it will cost them around Rs 1 crore,” HIPA director Rajni Shekhri Sibal said.

Sibal said a majority of the bus drivers and conductors employed by DTC are from Haryana and their hi-pitched accents and tough posturing is likely to make the foreign delegates uncomfortable.

“At HIPA we aim at ‘softening’ their behaviour and thereby improve their personality by training them on soft skills. The course module we have designed for them includes communication skills, spoken English, police interface, stress management, yoga at work and handling emergencies and disasters with paramedical techniques and first-aid. They would also be imparted training on psychological aspects such as gender sensitization and behaviour towards differently-abled people. We will also address issues such as safe diving as well as the ill-effects of drunken driving,” Sibal added.

Sibal also said that the DTC initially wanted HIPA to design a course module for their bus drivers and conductors. However, after witnessing the training of airport taxi drivers and auto-rickshaw drivers at the Gurgaon campus, they finally requested HIPA to train their drivers as well.

As many as 3,000 airport taxi drivers and 3,500 auto-rickshaw drivers have so far been trained at HIPA. HIPA has a target of training about 3,500 airport taxi drivers and 8,000 auto-rickshaw drivers here.