Social Justice ministry stresses on providing skill development to women safai karamcharis

New Delhi: Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot on Wednesday stressed on providing skill development training to women safai karmacharis and manual scavengers, thus enabling them to lead a dignified life.

"There is a need to provide skill development training particularly to the women safai karmacharis, manual scavengers and their children who so far have engaged only in sanitation related occupations," Gehlot said, after launching a skill development programme for the women safai karmacharis in New Delhi.

Referring to the Commercial Motor Driving Training with Self Defence Skills being provided by the National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC) to the safai karamcharis, the minister noted, "This training will empower the women and create a safer environment for them, especially in the cities."

He suggested that this training programme should also be started in other big cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Bengaluru etc.

Gehlot gave away employment letters to 30 trained women commercial motor drivers on the occasion. More than 1,500 safai karamchari trainees and their dependents availing skill development in various courses in Delhi participated in the programme.

Krishan Pal Gurjar, Minister of State, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in his address stated that another batch of 200 women trainees for Commercial Motor Driving Training with Self Defence Skills has been started.

NSKFDC is in dialogue with various taxi aggregators like OLA, Meru, Mega, Taxi for Sure, school van operators, Resident Welfare Associations etc for exploring employment opportunities for the trained women drivers.

"Once these drivers are on the roads, there will be a lot of confidence among the women and parents of girls in Delhi. They will feel that women are safer in Delhi than before," he said.

Under the programme, the NSKFDC aims to train more than 30,000 candidates under various skill development training courses like hair cutting, tailoring, embroidery and fashion designing, beauty parlour, data entry operators, artificial gems and jewellery making etc.

An MOU was signed between NSKFDC and Apollo MedSkills for training the safai karamcharis.

A Tripartite agreement was also signed among NSKFDC, HIMCON and Azad Foundation for employment of 90 trainees of commercial motor driving.