Women cabbies to hit Vizag roads soon

Visakhapatnam: Challenging stereotypes and as a symbol of empowerment, women cabbies will soon hit the roads of Visakhapatnam.

Thanks to an initiative of Femi Cabs, pioneered by help@11th, an NGO formed by a group of social activists with an objective to come to the rescue of those who are in emotional and financial stress and with the support of Fluentgrid, an IT company, women from marginalised and poor families are being trained in driving so as to enable them to become cabbies. Once the one-month long training by SSG driving school is over and licences are obtained, they will be encouraged to offer taxi service.

Visakhapatnam, a city with more than two million population, and a prominent industrial hub will become the first city in Andhra Pradesh to offer receiving and dropping facilities by women cabbies. While Fluentgrid is sponsoring the training expense, help@11th is the nodal agency, which is implementing the programme as a pilot project.

Fluentgrid corporate affairs vice president Winston Adams said, as part of women safety and empowerment, the service will help hassle-free travel for women tourists, entrepreneurs and executives. He said based on response, they will sponsor more candidates as part of their resolve to achieve women empowerment.

Adams told Bizz Buzz on Tuesday that to start with, they may be encouraged to own used cars through bank finance for better returns on investment (ROI). He said the government should also look at helping and empowering them under various empowerment schemes.

Explaining about Femi Cabs, Vijaya Radhika Behara, General Manager, help@11th said, as part of the women empowerment programmes, they hit upon the novel idea to offer the service for the women by the women. She said under this programme, 10 women will be trained in cab driving for 30 days. Normally car driving training is only for 18 days. However, help@11th has decided to train women for 30 days to shape them into thorough professionals on par with their male counterparts. They will also help the drivers get permanent licences.

The Road Transport Authority and Visakhapatnam City Traffic have also agreed to offer classes on do's and don't while driving on the roads for the women cab drivers. She said after the training, help@11th will act as a nodal agency to help cab drivers in procurement of cabs from the banks through the concerned AP government Welfare Corporations.

After the training programme a mega meeting is proposed by inviting a group of ministers, women MPs, MLAs, bureaucrats and technocrats to witness the project.

Explaining about their background, Radhika said help@11th is registered under the Societies Act in 2007 and is involved in the fields of education, women empowerment, health and other societal needs. "We have experienced teachers and have been preparing class 10th model paper books since its inception and are serving the students of government schools," she said adding, they have also distributed the books every year to the tribal students in Paderu, Parvathipuram, Sitampeta and Bhadrachalam ITDA areas. The help@11th also conducted a mega state-level music and dance competition with Rs 5 lakh prize money in association with AP Tourism, Andhra University and Sri Padmavathi Mahila University, Tirupati.