When truck drivers learnt about HIV/AIDS in New Delhi

Several truck drivers in Delhi's Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar area were sensitised about HIV/AIDS besides being given a medical check-up on Wednesday, during an AIDS awareness camp here. Organised by the Transport Corporation of India (TCI) Foundation here, the objective of the camp is to make illiterate or uneducated truck drivers and their helpers aware about HIV/AIDS problems.

The general awareness event was a part of "Project Kavach", a national level HIV/AIDS prevention programme, started for long distance truckers and helpers by the Transport Corporation of India (TCI) Foundation in January 2004. It has been usually noticed that the poor male-migrant workers make contacts with prostitutes during their long journeys across the country and become victims of HIV/AIDS.

Organised on quarterly basis, these camps have been named "Kushi Clinics" and is known to have seventeen centres to spread information on preventing the spread of the deadly disease.

There are fifteen non-government organisations that are promoting this programme through these clinics.

Besides educating people about HIV/AIDS, the clinics also provide condoms and medicines at 70 per cent less than their market price.

The programme has at least 27 truckers who spread awareness about AIDS. There are about 800 condom social marketing outlets.

Guddu, one of the truck drivers, said: "They tell us about the use of condoms, which checks the spread of the disease."

At the clinics, all truckers are issued a medical 'passport' which helps them to buy medicines and allow them access to treatment in other centres of the country.

Tarun Vij, the project director of Project Kavach, said: "The attempt of this programme is to promote among truckers a health conscious behaviour and use of condoms. And, thereby, arrest the incidence of fresh case of HIV."

The official website of Transport Corporation of India (TCIL) claims the company being the country's leading Multimodal Integrated Supply Chain Solutions Provider.

The company is stated to be equipped with an extensive set up of 1100 branch offices, a workforce of 5,700 people and a well-performing script in premier stock exchanges as Bomaby Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE).

According to UN-backed government estimates, the number of people living with HIV/Aids in the country stands around half of previous official estimates at between 2-3.1 million people.

Previous estimates from the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) put the number of HIV cases at 5.2 million, while UNAids in 2006 estimated 5.7 million cases.(source : news.yahoo.com)