HYDERABAD: No woman has come forward to claim the job of female bus drivers with the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) despite a 33 per cent reservation for them.
For over two years the TSRTC has been on the lookout for women bus drivers but had to give the jobs to men after finding no takers among women for the job.
“We have a 33 per cent job reservation but no woman has come forward to apply. We have close to 6,000 women as bus conductors but not a single woman as driver,” said GV Ramana Rao, managing director, TSRTC.
But all that changed on Friday with the first Telangana woman applicant for the job post for a bus driver. Vankadarath Saritha, a resident of Nalgonda district, became the first woman to apply for a bus driver’s job with TSRTC.
She started working with the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) in 2014 but is yet to be made permanent. She has been trying to get the attention of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Prime Minister to get a permanent posting in DTC. She is the first woman bus driver for DTC.
“DTC officials told me that they would make me permanent after six months but that did not happen. I earn `15,000 a month but Delhi is an expensive city and I find it difficult to manage and also send money to my parents. It would be easier for me to take care of my parents if I get a job in TS,” said the 33-year woman bus driver. DTC is currently in process of inducting 10 more women as bus drivers, she added.
“If she applies through the recruitment process and fulfils the norms, she will be a good candidate for us,” Rao said.
“We have women as bus conductors, engineers and officers. I must say that they are at par and maybe even better than their male counterparts,” Rao remarked.