FOR WOMEN BY WOMEN: A STUDY ON TAXI SERVICE AGGREGATORS’ INITIATIVE TO EMPOWER WOMEN IN INDIA

Abstract

In the recent past there has been an increasing demand for woman drivers, especially in metropolitan cities. The number of sexual harassment and horrific rapes which women encounter when they travel alone seem to be the main reason for such a demand. It has made the Taxi aggregators such as Ola and Uber to rethink the safety measures for their women passengers apart from having a SOS button installed in the app or even providing provision to share the ride details and facility to track the ride too. The launch of Ola pink, She Taxi, Gcabs, Viira and Priyadharshini seem to have both women safety and women empowerment as their main motive. Cabs that are driven ‘for women by women’ have introduced women drivers in the driver ecosystem. Ola Pink has facilitated micro entrepreneurship by not just creating women cab drivers but Ola Women entrepreneurs. The idea behind this is to develop a sustainable model and create livelihood opportunities for more women. By doing so these taxi aggregates have also earned their
lost reputation and embraced livelihood options for women thus creating a win-win solution. However not all of the above mentioned taxi services ‘for women by women’ have been successful. Though it assures safety of women and contributes largely towards woman empowerment, there still seem to be hurdles in making this venture successful. The focus of this research is to find out the success stories of these Taxi aggregates in creating livelihood opportunities for women and the drawbacks and challenges faced in this venture, taking Ola Pink and M Auto as comparative case study.