Government looking to make cab rides safer for women

Public Transport in Delhi has proved to be extremely unsafe for women. First a bus and now a cab, women complain about facing harassment in all parts of NCR. To address this, it has been suggested that women cab drivers could be a safe alternative. However, this too is proving to be a challenging task.

The Deccan Herald reported that a proposal to appoint drivers for She Taxi has received a very poor response in Hyderabad since only four women with transport licenses and 11 with light motor vehicle licenses have come forward since the idea was proposed. The city is still making efforts to hire more women.

RTO joint commissioner Venkateswarlu told Deccan Herald, “The committee has announced several benefits for women drivers like free training with stipend, free accommodation and cabs with the help of private taxi services, till they get new ones.”

The Financial Express>

In a report yesterday, we mentioned how Mumbai is gearing up to produce more female cab drivers to prevent incidents like the Uber Rape. Mumbai, however, isn’t the only country working in this direction. Where Meru Cabs and Easy Cabs are now taking steps to ensure thorough background checks on drivers, many cab companies will now have women drivers.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Rajiv Vij, Managing Director of Easy Cabs, said, “In case of deviation, the driver would be called immediately. If he doesn’t respond, the passenger would be called to find out if everything was going fine.”