Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) has inked a contract with MCCT Associates to train selected Thari women drivers on professional grounds to launch Thari Female Dump Truck Driving Program.

SECMC hasSindh Government as the major investor recently announced to initiate women to drive the 60-ton dump truck,Pakistan’s biggesttruck at coal mining site at Thar Coal Block II in district of Tharparkar.

Chief executive officer Shamsuddin Ahmad Shaikh of SECMC and senior consultant, Tanvir GondalMCCT, Chief Operating Officer SECMC, Syed AbulFazal Rizvi, and Director Human Resource, Kashif Ahmed Soomro signed the contract on the occasion.

The selected candidates will undergo comprehensive training modules together with languages module comprising English, Urdu, and Chinese languages, technical module, and auto-basic module, for one year followed by a regular job with all facilities the company offers to its employees as per the contract, starting September 01, 2017.

The candidates will be paid Rs.15000/- as amonthly stipend during the training. To conduct training at the SECMC’s mine site MCCT will deploy women trainers.

Shaikh said that one of the major components of the SECMC’s coal mining project is to provide means of support to the local communities.

“We witnessed that the Thari women were very strong and resilient and did quite arduous tasksduring our project in Islamkot. In the meantime, SECMC also attempts to provide equal job opportunities to men and women, a dedicated project to induct women in driving could well work and the response we received from the Thari women showed that we are in the right direction by engaging women in dump truck drivers,” he said.

Mr. Rizvi, COO SECMC stated that part of the Thar Coal Mining project is ‘fundamental principle to empower the people of Thar’.

“Benefits of this game-changing project to be passed on to the indigenous communities. And this project to train and induct women as dump truck drivers at acoal mine is a commitment of SECMC towards empowering the women of the area when it comes to socio-economic affairs and decision making at thecommunity level,” he said.

MCCT’s Gondalsaid that itis a ‘great initiative of the SECMC to empower women and generate skilled female human resource in Tharparkar’.

He waspleased to be part of this momentous initiative and to make this program successful will give its best by producing skilled women dump truck drivers competing at par with men in the field.