It is a weekday evening. Sunita Kohli, 29, a driver with the Azad Foundation’s women taxi service, waits outside Rohini metro station for a guest. She is dressed in a green and violet uniform, wears a bindi and smiles widely when she recounts how she applied for the job. “I assisted my husband who is a tailor. I was so bad at stitching; I hated it. Then I saw a pamphlet about a driving course the Azad Foundation was offering to women drivers and visited their Model Town office,” she says.
Sunita is one of 71 women drivers trained by the Azad Foundation under its Women on Wheels programme started two years ago in association with the Delhi Police Crime against Women Cell and the Delhi Traffic Police. She trained for several months in self-defence, learnt English and computer, besides driving, but says she still feels unsafe commuting. “I work till 9:30 - 10 p.m. and have to wait for the bus home to Jahangirpuri on Route 891. There were 12 of us in my batch, but now there are only three of us because it is not easy. Sometimes, I have waited at the bus stop till 10:30 p.m.. The bus stop is deserted and men pass comments. Sometimes I have been forced to leave the bus stop and stay in the office,” she said.
This fear and lack of freedom to move in public spaces finds resonance with several women. After the December 16 gang rape case, the government set up a core group under the Chief Secretary inviting suggestions from various departments, including the Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure Centre (UTTIPEC) team of the Delhi Development Authority, the Delhi Police, the Department of Heath and Family Welfare, etc., on improving women’s safety.
The aim was to take the focus beyond policing to creating an atmosphere of safety. The UTTIPEC recommended simple measures such as better streetlights, allowing vendors who will function as “eyes on Delhi streets”, functional public toilets, safer bus stops and walking space, and encouraging 24X7 activities. In its letters, most recently this January, the UTTIPEC referred to its audit of Outer Ring Road (Munirka-Mahipalpur), Dhaula Kuan clover leaf, Dwarka Sub-City, Nehru Place District Centre and proposed micro-planning for these “vulnerable” zones. However, The Hindu found no change in the condition of street lights, activity levels even in areas like Nehru Place District Centre and Dhaula Kuan, which have been referred to as unsafe spots.
At Nehru Place, no street lights were functional on the road stretch from Nehru Place to Astha Kunj, and of the 11 street lights at Nehru Place metro parking lot, only one was functional. “These lights have not functional over the past several months,” Ghalib, a parking attendant told The Hindu . On the road leading from Dhaula Kuan to Naraina and towards Vasant Vihar, there are several stretches of deserted roads without functional street lights. “Street lights are maintained by BSES Rajdhani. If anyone complains, we ask them to repair,” said an NDMC official.
“The setting up of the core group on improving safety was a progressive move. We met twice, all departments gave their suggestions, but after August 2013, there were no further meetings,” said Kalpana Vishwanath of NGO Jagori who have been carrying out safety audits of public spaces since 2005.
