HYDERABAD: Women Safety Wing (WSW), Telangana, launched Sthree Ride, a women drivers’ initiative under the Stand With Her campaign on Saturday. DGP CV Anand and WSW chief Charu Sinha inaugurated the programme, where they handed over 50 electric bikes and four electric autorickshaws to women drivers.
The initiative has been taken to empower women and address the frequent women safety complaints from transport facilities, including Metro, buses and bike taxis. The DGP told the women drivers not to give up for at least six months.
Charu Sinha said that the initiative was important because “we keep getting frequent complaints about misbehaviour from buses, cabs, Metro, bikes and other transport facilities”.
One of the beneficiaries, Nalla Lovely from Saidabad, told TNIE, “Women are belittled everywhere. My own family would discourage me and prevent me from becoming a driver. With the help of WSW’s Sthree Ride initiative, I will be able to give a befitting reply to all those who said that women can’t drive.”
“My biggest detractor is my own brother. After hearing that I was going to become a driver, he mocked me, saying how many people I was going to kill in accidents. I will give him a befitting reply with my driving licence,” she added.
Lovely is a degree dropout, and she reportedly used to work as a labourer at construction sites. “When I recently saw the news about driving, I approached the officials concerned and learnt how to drive. My biggest motivation to come into this profession is to tell my naysayers that I did not care about your discouraging remarks and here I am driving anyway,” she said.
Archana, a vegetable vendor, was finding it difficult to make ends meet after her husband died a few years ago. With the very little money she earned, she wanted to take up the driver’s profession and approached the WSW officials who taught her driving.
Another woman, N Durga Bhavani, a techie, said she was motivated to join the women drivers’ fleet after her sister faced misbehaviour by a male rider. “I do not want women to be dependent on male drivers.”