A female BRAC driver poses at the wheel of a vehicle in Dhaka recently. — AFP photo

More women are taking up driving as a profession now, with the figure of such women now reaching 2,500 across the country, road transport authorities officials said.
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority officials have said that they issued driving licences to 2,000–2,500 women to drive cars, jeeps and microbuses. The agency issued light vehicle driving licences to two of the women and heavy vehicle driving licences to two more.
‘Issuance of driving licences to women has increased in recent years,’ the BRTA director (engineering), Mohammad Saiful Hoque, told New Age on Saturday.
Under Gonoshasthaya Kendra’s Nari Unnayan Karmasuchi, a driving school for women called
Nari Driver Licence School started training women in 1994.
The school’s director Sandhaya Roy told New Age on Saturday that 42 women, trained in the school, were working as professional drivers all over the country.
‘We train female drivers for three years as a four-week training cannot make them confident to run vehicles on roads,’ she said.
Anowara Begum, a professional light vehicle driver trained in the school, has now been driving vehicles for 14 years. ‘I have driven vehicles all over the country at night and at day.’
Anowara said that her husband gave his full support for her to continue with the job.
Another female driver trained in the school, Shefa Ali Begum, said that she was also working as a professional driver.
The BRAC Driving School in a ceremony on September 18 gave distributed certificates to 21 women on their completing an eight-week driving training.
The communications minister, Obaidul Qader, at the programme said that female drivers were good as they could make decisions coolheadedly.
Seven out of the 21 trainees are now on job. Afsana Mimi, along with Ratna Khatun, Sumi Khatun, and Nasrin, got job at the BRAC Bank in October.
‘We are very happy to get a job here,’ Afsana said adding that their families and other male colleagues encouraged them.
Jonny Akhter, Parul Akhter and Sharifa Khatun, also trained in the BRAC school, are driving privately-owned cars in the capital city.