Image via Daily Mail
Beti Bachao campaign may have just got a new makeover, and we are happy to say that this new scheme now launched by the government, if it is carried out to completion, will kill several birds with one stone.
In an attempt to tweak an age old caste and gender narrative, the Modi government has introduced a scheme to train women to become cab drivers. Only they chose to target a certain section of women who were finding it hard to find jobs because of their caste – the sanitation workers or human scavengers of old.
Under a seven-month-long programme, 1,150 women from Delhi – whose parents are safai karamcharis or manual scavengers – are being given driving lessons. The plan is to help them become taxi drivers and be aligned with taxi services like Uber and Ola. 10 cars from motor driving schools have been engaged for this purpose.
Everyday, 250 women in Delhi hit the road to become fighting fit and qualified to become a cab drivers. They bring home an income of several thousand rupees. They are even being given lessons in martial arts to protect themselves when working late and spoken English tuitions to qualify them for commercial cab services.
Image via Mail Today
These trainees – all in the age group of 17 to 25 – come from the slums of Madangir, Sangam Vihar, Lal Kuan and Ambedkar Nagar in south Delhi. The government is planning to take this scheme up with women from similar backgrounds in other cities.
The benefit as we see here is three-fold. This would definitely increase the ratio of women cab drivers in Delhi, versus men, giving working women in India’s rape capital a better sense of security. Eventually, the government plans to put 5000 women cab drivers on the road in Delhi.
Secondly, it offers an option for women, particularly from the class of sanitation workers, many of whom are forced to follow the same occupation for generations because their parents’ occupation keeps them from getting jobs with more dignity. And if you look at the lack of basic amenities and protection that most municipal sanitation departments fail to provide, you will realise this is little more than manual scavenging.
“Collecting someone’s excreta in a bucket, and carrying it away on your head is the worst job in the world. My mother did it with her head covered in a veil. I hope to bring some dignity to our lives. I can exercise choice. She could not,” says 20-year-old Malini to Mail Today. Malini too is one of the trainees in the cab driver program.
For women like Malini’s mother, their fate is a result of lack of options. Dalits, the lowest caste in India’s social pecking order, do the job that others won’t. “Bhedbhav ke kaaran ham aur kuchh kar nahi paaye. Jo kaam kiya usse aur bhedbhav mila (We could not do any other job because of social discrimination. And because of what we did there was more discrimination),” she says, her voice choked and eyes welled up.
Thirdly, since the government is also offering loans to buy individual taxis, this may be the beginning of a new wave of entrepreneurship by women who until now had no access to such options.
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