Centre plans 'ladies only' cabs in B'lore

Centre plans 'ladies only' cabs in B'lore
DH News Service, New Delhi:
The Ministry for Women and Child Development plans to introduce women cab drivers in Bangalore to ensure safety of working women.


This was revealed on Tuesday by Union Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhary, who has been a vehement critic of the BJP government in Karnataka after the Mangalore pub attack.

“The ministry is prep-aring a plan to introduce women cab drivers in Bangalore soon. Woman-driven cabs will be introduced on a pilot basis to ferry passengers to the Bangalore International Airport. Subsequently, it will be extended to the IT and BPO companies,” she said.

“As some IT and BPO companies and hotels have evinced interest in hiring cabs driven by women, we want to encourage them,” she said.

The minister claimed that the “ladies only” cabs would be a boon to working women in Bangalore. Later, such cabs would be introduced in Delhi and Hyderabad.

Secretary to the ministry, Ajith Kumar, said initially the ministry would train women and help them get driving licences. If some one comes forward to buy a taxi, financial help would be provided through banks.

Chowdhary said the ministry was encouraged by the success of women taxi drivers in Mumbai.

She said: “We want women to have a choice while travelling.”

Women taxi service in Mumbai is called Forsche. There are 53 taxis driven by women in Mumbai.

A demand for introducing women cab drivers was raised when Pratibha Murthy, a call centre employee, was murdered by a cab driver in Bangalore in 2005.

This incident had raised concerns about the safety of women employees in call centres, prompting the police and companies to implement better safeguards.