Spurt in demand for female chauffeurs

New Delhi: Twenty-eight-year-old Anita Jha, who has worked for many years as a domestic servant, is learning to drive a car. Demand for women-drivers is increasing, especially since the Delhi gang-rape incident of December 16, she says.
Not just Jha, many women like her have decided to take to driving as a means of livelihood.

"If Delhi is unsafe for women, let's have more women on the road. With a large number of women behind the wheel, such crime can be controlled. Female chauffeurs with proper self-defence training and gadgets like panic buttons in the car have no reason to feel scared, they are quite secure," says Diya Chaudhary, a trainee at the Institute of Driving and Traffic Research (IDTR) at Sarai Kale Khan in the national capital.

IDTR is run by Maruti Suzuki, and offers training in driving buses and cars, besides other vehicles. There are centres of the institute at Wazirabad, north Delhi and Sarai Kale Khan, south Delhi. IDTR, at its centres across the country, trains about one lakh people every year, of which about 45,000 are women. In Delhi alone, it trains over 1,000 people each year -- 70 percent of the trainees are women.

"We have found an increase in demand for such training from women. Usually, we get around 15 people a month; as of now, we are getting 35 people for training each month," a trainer said. Meanwhile, many cab services in the national capital said that after the December 16 gang-rape incident, women in the national capital region have been seeking out women drivers.