Why all-women cab services are not hailed

Safer travelling options for women are available, in the form of all-women taxi fleets such as Sakha Cabs, Gcabs, Viira and others — yet these have failed to cash in.. The reason: lack of proper funding, and therefore reduced visibility.

Opportunities notwithstanding, operating an all-women fleet comes with its set of challenges. “This (cab services) is a very male-dominated business. It is difficult for women to get licences, especially commercial ones,” said Shrinivas Rao, Programme Director, Delhi State, Azad Foundation. The Foundation trains women drivers — including mechanical aspects, besides martial arts training — for operating the small fleet of cars at Sakha.

Rao added that access to finances for such ventures is also a big problem, with all-women services not being seen as financially viable.

“Banks are not ready to fund these ventures. But, we have shown that this business model can work. We are at the stage where we can grow further,” Rao said.

That a women-only cab service is not seen as a good enough business opportunity came into the limelight earlier, in 2010, when an all-women cab company ForShe could not attract funding from banks, despite three years of successful operation across the country.

Such companies make sense, with the Government as well as popular cab companies failing their clients’ security — both women as well as men.

As exposed in this recent case, Uber, the cab aggregator, flouted several rules of the Radio Taxi Scheme 2006 — such as having the car fitted with GPS/GPRS-based tracking devices and state-wise permits only.

Even as radio cab companies, such as Meru, are following these basic rules, aggregators such as Uber and TaxiforSure appear to be getting away with not adhering to them. The GPS tracking for Uber and TaxiforSure works through the mobile app, but if the phone is switched off, it will not work.

Further, police verification appears to be a mere formality, to which the police itself appear to pay scant attention. According to a copy of the police verification certificate made in the name of the accused, the latter has no criminal records — despite having served time in prison in 2011 in a similar case.

Some companies claim they are doing things differently. Sakshi Vij , Executive Director, Carzonrent (operates Easy Cab), said the company gets various kinds of information from the driver, does biometric tests, besides keeping copies of PAN Card, photograph, address proof and work references.

“We do a third party verification of the drivers, where we hire a company that checks on drivers’ residential address and previous workplace feedback, to ensure the information is correct. We also ensure they have a bank account so that they also go through the KYC norms,” she said.

In addition, the company also has systems in place by which if a driver deviates from the assigned path the company’s call centre is alerted. The cabs are also fitted with panic buttons for customers, she added.

Siddhartha Pahwa, Group CEO, Meru Cabs, said each driver has to get police verification done, while the company verifies the address. “Meru keeps biometric records of the driver, besides documents like licence, car documents and others,” he added.

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