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Establishment of driving institutes still a distant dream for people in J&K

Subodh Bhasin. Dated: 2/21/2018 10:40:23 AM

Subodh Bhasin
Jammu, Feb 20
Despite being sanctioned years ago State government failed to establish Institute of Driving Training and Research (IDTR) in the state.
The information in this regard was provided by the minister concerned over a query raised by Sajjad Ahmad Kichloo regarding establishment of Institutes of Driving and Training in the state of Jammu & Kashmir.
Informing the members, Minister of transport during budget session in June 2016, the minister In charge replied that the union ministry of MORTH (Ministry of road transport and highways) has sanctioned one institute of Driving Training and Research (IDTR) for Jammu, under 100% central Government Scheme IDTR, for which an amount of Rs 1700 lakhs was to be provided as per the guidelines. The State of Jammu & Kashmir was required to fulfill the guidelines and the project was to operated on self sustain and commercially viable basis through a society.
Although proposal was sanctioned for establishment of Institute of Driving & Training in Jammu And Kashmir State and for said purpose 100 Kanal (12 acres) land was acquired at Ghaink, Kot Bhalwal, Jammu way back in year 2013, yet no major headway took place even after one year. It took almost one year for state government that the DPR of the said project was prepared by JKPCC in February 2014 and submitted to Union Government for approval.
It took almost two years and the Union Government approved the said project in December 2016 and thereafter released an amount of Rs 150 Lakhs as first installment of funds in May 2017 for starting and execution of the project.
It is worthwhile to mention that Institute of Driving Training and Research (IDTR), is the state-of the-art driving training facility formed under the aegis of the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, India. It aims to provide dynamic training to educate drivers about right ways of driving. The objective of institute is to work sincerely towards fulfilling its initiative of increasing “Road Safety" while driving as well as reducing the number of accidents happening due to untrained drivers.
As the number of accidents in the state are happening almost each and every day, and most of the times there were several casualties in tragic road mishaps as driving discipline and training is very weak in the State of Jammu & Kashmir. There is an indomitable need to develop a training facility to control the situation and delay and lethargic approach adopted by the state government is cause of concern. As IDTR was developed with the objective to go on and set a benchmark in professional driver education and lay down the ground rules for safe driving. Driving training facilities and curriculum were designed to impart training for driving a gamut of vehicles ranging from cars, trucks, buses, taxis to three-wheelers. It is imperative and need of the hour that the state government should take this project expeditiously so that people by large, commuters and drivers can have utmost benefit by educating themselves from the Institute of Driving Training & Research