A woman returning home alone in a cab at night need no longer make her family and friends anxious. Come February, she will have the option of choosing a woman to steer her home safe.

Calcutta’s first women-only chauffeur-on-call service is apparently the launch pad for a regular taxi fleet with women drivers in less than a year.

The Azad Foundation, a non-profit-organisation that had launched the service first in Delhi in 2008 and recently in Jaipur and Indore, has trained around 500 women as drivers and is looking to fill a gap in Calcutta that has become pronounced in recent years.

“We keep getting mails and phone calls asking when women drivers would be available here (in Calcutta). For now, only the chauffeur-on-call service would be available. This will be just like hiring a private car for a few hours,” said Dolon Ganguly, programme director at the Azad Foundation.

Nine women aged between 20 and 35 have trained for six months to become as adept at changing a flat tyre as they are at changing gear. Another nine are being readied to become chauffeurs-on-call by May. Sometime next year, the first batch would be eligible for commercial driving licences to work as cabbies.

In a city where taxi drivers often refuse passengers on a whim, the advent of app-cab services like Ola and Uber changed the way people could hire transport even in the dead of night. But from the perspective of women on the move, the women-only chauffeur-on-call service has the potential to be a game changer.

A large section of women in Calcutta who work till late in the evening are exposed to the possibility of harassment the moment they hire a cab with a male at the wheel. Women returning from a night out face the same plight and are often left with no choice but to call family members or male friends to escort them.

“There is always the fear that the driver will take a wrong turn and take me to an unknown location. Screaming on a deserted road wouldn’t help; so I remain extra alert whenever I am in a cab at night. If I have a woman at the wheel, I wouldn’t need to keep a finger ready to dial a helpline,” said a young fashion designer who works in a New Alipore studio and often needs to take a cab at night.

The nine chauffeurs ready to hit the road next month in crisp green uniform with red collars feel just as empowered. “I had never thought about learning to drive a car until someone told me about this job opportunity. My first day at the wheel was scary. But as time went by, driving a car came naturally,” said Khurshida Begun, a mother-of-one from Rajabazar.

Each of the women has received training in first-aid, basic English, gender sensitisation and Wenlido, a self-defence module popular in many parts of the world.

The last round of evaluation that each candidate needs to clear to start working as a professional is conducted by the Azad Foundation’s revenue-earning unit Sakha, which also takes care of placements.

Programme director Ganguly said the training programme had been designed to give each of the trainees at least two-and-a-half months at the wheel under supervision.

The period is sometimes increased, depending on individual need.

Shehnaz Khatoon, 18, is one of the aspiring chauffeurs in the second batch. “I had always dreamt of flying a plane, although that didn’t become a reality. But I get the same thrill out of driving that flying a plane would have given me,” she said.

Shehnaz plans to surprise her father in her uniform once she completes the training, which she was encouraged to join by her mother.

Would you hire a woman chauffeur? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / by Monalisa Chaudhuri / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / January 08th, 2015