Bengaluru: Day in and day out, we hear cries for women empowerment. Designing programmes to bring them to the mainstream, offering incentives to encourage them to participate more willingly in societal issues are all known. 

But in Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh, a 24-year-old girl – Naaz Fatima – is being trained to drive a UPSRTC bus. If she succeeds in clearing it, she will become the first female driver to storm into a male bastion, Times of India reports. 

“Through an advertisement, I came to know that SRTC is all set to start a heavy commercial driving training course for women to help them get jobs. I applied and after getting selected, I enrolled myself into their driving course. This is indeed going to be a challenging task for me. I will try to become a responsible driver, and safety of passengers will be my top priority while driving on roads,” as quoted by the website. 

Naaz underwent training at the Model Training and Research Institute. Her principal, SP Singh, can’t hide his happiness. 

He adds, “As far as I know, she would be the first woman driver who would encourage more women to come forward and join the SRTC’s fleet of buses. It’s the first batch of 27 women, who will undergo training at the institute, which is the first of its kind in the region. We will soon make provision for imparting training to more such women”.

The Adityanath government has devised various schemes to help the girl child. Mission Shakti is also one such. 

It entails programmes to make women more self-reliant, confident and getting more security.

Kudos to Naaz for breaking stereotypes!