Website for autorickshaw drivers gets Pune mayor’s support

Mayor of Pune city, Mohansingh Rajpal, has promised
that the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will lend support to the demand for a dedicated website for autorickshaw drivers in the city, if Rickshaw Panchayat leader Baba Adhav comes up with such a proposal.   

Rajpal was speaking at a felicitation ceremony organised by the Suryadatta Group of Institutes for its first outgoing batch of the English-speaking and computer literacy programme for autorickshaw drivers in the city. The ceremony was held at Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad on Saturday.    

“With the growing expat community and foreign visitors in Pune, along with the Chakan airport coming up in the near future, we need autorickshaw drivers who can work as ambassadors of our cultural city and connect through proper communication in English with visitors. A dedicated website for them will tremendously help in networking with passengers,” said Rajpal.     

Other dignitaries present on the occasion were founder of Yuvak Kranti Dal, Kumar Saptarshi; IT expert Deepak Shikarpur, and chairman-MD of Suryadatta Group of Institutes, Sanjay Chordia.  

The free six-month English-speaking and computer course for the city’s autorickshaw drivers was a social initiative by the Suryadatta Education Foundation under its Edu-Socio Connect programme. A total of 80 drivers were selected from the various applications that were received.

Speaking about the course, autorickshaw driver Vinayak Kulkarni said, “It has truly opened a new horizon and inspired us to learn more. The course will help us gain respect in society. We would really appreciate if a website is designed for us. It will give our profession a brand new image.”      

Chordia said the second batch will start on January 3, on the occasion of women liberator Savitribai Phule’s birthday. “The outgoing batch has become the alumni of Suryadatta Group of Institutes. They showed keen interest and perseverance in attending classes. Any suggestions for changes from them are welcome,” he added.  

As district governor of Rotary Club, Shikarpur said that the club will give cash prizes to the first five autorickshaw drivers from the next batch. “As brand ambassadors of Pune, the autorickshaw association must start tatkal autorickshaw service using the SMS medium,” he added. 

The six-month training included teaching basic grammar, words, sentence formation, written English, pronunciation as part of the English-speaking course.

The computer skills training programme introduced the autorickshaw drivers to MS Office and basic usage of computers for office and home.