New Delhi, Aug 23 (IANS) Foreign athletes and guests, who will be flying down here for the Commonwealth Games, now won’t have to face a language barrier. All they will need to do is to look for the badge ‘I Speak English’ which will be worn by select drivers and conductors ferrying passengers trained in the language.
Around 3,000 car drivers, who will be ferrying high profile guests and VIPS, and 1,200 Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) drivers are currently undergoing training to learn basic English to earn the special badge.
Tata Motors Limited (TML) will be providing the car and bus fleet for the Games transport and have hired a training institute for the purpose.
‘The drivers are also being trained in route familiarisation, mannerism and other things besides English. We will offer those badges to around 1,000 selected drivers who will fare well in the training,’ said Ashish Kumar, Deputy Director General, Transport, Organising Committee.
Jiji Thomson, special director-general of Commonwealth Games, told IANS that the idea is to ensure the tourists, visitors and foreign athletes hassle-free commuting in the city.
‘They can approach the trained drivers for routes without any hesitancy. We will identify the drivers who can understand things like ‘I want to go to a movie or bar etc,’ Thomson said.
The transport fleet for the Games has been classified into five categories as per the rules of the Commonwealth Games Federation.
The tier-one car fleet will be dedicated cars with drivers for high profile guests and will have 485 cars. The second-tier will be on-call car service or shared taxis for VIP guests and will have a fleet of 1,000 cars accommodating around 3,000 clients. Tier-three will be for athletes with 349 air conditioned buses. Media, broadcast and technical officials come in fourth category which will have 225 air-conditioned buses.
DTC and Metro will contribute 1,900 buses for spectators, volunteers and work force.
Apart from that, there will be dedicated 275 vans for CG teams at the Games village.
Tata Motors estimates their expenditure to the tune of Rs.45 crore. The Organising Committee (OC) will reimburse around Rs.10 crore in lieu of drivers’ salary, fuel and management while the rest would be raised through sponsorship.
Tata Motors is providing a fleet of brand new 1,800, cars and SUVs, back-up services, 3,000 drivers and supporting staff which will be deployed at venues and depots.
The drivers would carry communication radio sets, while every car would be fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) to track their movements.
‘We will be ready to handle any untoward incidents like car breakdown and punctures with our back-up service. The drivers have been given instructions about what to do in case of any eventuality including a terror attack,’ Kumar said.
A 24X7 call centre would be in place and the entire operation will be controlled by Transport Operational Centre from the OC Headquarters.
‘We have conducted trials of the transport system during the test events and the facilities have also been tested,’ Kumar said.
He also added that the Delhi traffic police have received good feedback from the commuters during the trials at the special Games Lane at Lodi road Sunday.
