KOCHI: Kerala’s She Taxi, India’s first 24×7 women-only cab service facilitated by the state government, has generated over Rs 15 lakh revenue in five months of its launch, helped by an increase in women passengers looking for safe travel options within and outside cities.
The women-owned, women-operated service introduced in Kerala’s capital Thiruvanathapuram in November last year with an initial fleet of five cars has now expanded to 20 cabs and has carried more than 9,000 passengers so far.
Kochi will become the second city in Kerala to have She Taxis on the road when Chief Minister Oommen Chandy launches the service here.
She Taxi is the first off-campus project initiated by the Gender Park, established by Kerala’s Department of Social Justice to unify all activities aimed at attaining gender equity.
State Minister for Social Justice, Dr M K Muneer said taxis will soon be introduced in Kozhikode city and in a phased manner in other locations.
Urban bodies in Hyderabad and Bangalore have expressed interest in replicating the She Taxi model.
“The project has achieved remarkable progress both in terms of popularity and earnings in the last six months. We started this business model to help women entrepreneurs earn a monthly income of at least Rs 20,000, but the incomes are comfortably above that level”, Muneer said.
‘She Taxi has opened up a whole new avenue of employment for women’, according to K M Abraham, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Social Justice.
A sector like transport is not something that women entrepreneurs readily enter into, but the massive public response to the She Taxi has changed that. Once the service expands to other cities it is going to transform the lives of thousands of women in the state, he said.
The customized pink and white taxis, supplied by Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., have collectively covered more than two lakh kilometers inside and outside the state. The women drivers have made outstation trips to Ponmudi and Munnar within Kerala and to destinations including Kanyakumari and Thirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.
The She Taxi service has so far received 3,700 trip bookings, night time travel accounting for around 1,600 of these. It was the official travel partner of the International Film Festival of Kerala last year. More than 1,500 women delegates traveled with the She Taxi during IFFK held last year. -PTI
