Viira Cabs is a
taxi service for women passengers by women drivers. Viira Motor Training School
is the only driving school in the country that exclusively trains women from
low income groups to become taxi drivers.
A taxi
service by women is an answer to the demand for a safe, reliable, door-to-door
transport service in a metropolis.
Inclusion of women in transport services has a two-fold aspect – a safe
transport system for women and more significantly employment opportunities for
women from low economic backgrounds. At Viira Cabs we take this a few steps
ahead by providing a green, eco-friendly fleet and encouraging safe, defensive
driving.
History
The first lady
taxi service was started in Mumbai by Revathi Roy in 2007 called Forsche which
later partnered with Orix and became Forshe - a cab service and a training
school. It shut down in 2011. Then an NGO called Sakha trained some lady
drivers in Delhi but developed into a service much later, albeit with little
success. Priyadarshini, a cab service started later in 2007 in Mumbai has so
far never crossed 25 cabs, it doesn’t not have a training model. Viira Cabs
started in Mumbai in 2011 as a cab service and a motor training school, and
today has 17 cabs. There have been feeble attempts to start similar services in
Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad but with little success.
Reasons for Failure
Anyone would
think taxis by women drivers is a brilliant and much needed concept, and the
demand being so huge, it has to succeed. But the truth is that not a single women’s
taxi service has been successful, most have closed down. And the main
reason is that a scalable model needs a funnel of drivers, which in turn requires
large scale interventions in the following areas:
1. TRAINING: There are no ready lady
drivers. Women have to be trained to become taxi drivers and it takes three
months of grueling and expensive training to do so. Most of the services that
started with a handful of girls, stopped as they had no funnel of drivers.
Potential women drivers hail from an economic strata where they can probably
count the times they have had a ride in car – so from there, to becoming a taxi
driver who is on the roads 10 hours daily, is a long journey. Viira Cabs taught
207 girls to become commercial drivers. Around 80 of them completed the 3 month
long training. No single other organization has trained so many women as both
sourcing and sustenance are formidable challenges. Viira Motor Training School
has had to stop training as it simply doesn’t have the funds to do it anymore. For
the girls fighting the societal barrier is a challenge enough, they just can’t
afford to pay for the training. And forget about recovering through employment
as most quit (explained in Point 2) in between. The obvious conclusion is that
training has to either be a state initiative or that of an NGO with deep
pockets. However, when it comes to women empowerment in India, the governments
as well as the NGOs don’t go beyond tokenism - the one time gift of a sewing
machine is a proud achievement of many a Lions Club event. Training women in
skills that will earn them a livelihood anywhere in the world, at any age, is
just not on anyone’s agenda.
2. ABSENTEEISM & ATTRITION: The women
who become taxi drivers are from families where they are usually the primary
care givers. If there is a crisis in the family, their jobs get sacrificed
first. Minor illnesses to altercations at home, anything can become a cause for
absenteeism; and major illnesses, weddings, deaths, all become reasons for
quitting. At Viira Cabs the absence and attrition has led to huge losses as
each day of a car standing unused hits a small fleet really bad. And that’s the
main problem with all the other failed attempts – the dependency on a handful
of drivers makes the business unsustainable. If this business has to be viable
it should have a driver surplus – which brings us to problem number 1 – there
are no training providers.
3. PERMITS: Central and State Transport
Authorities in India are still living in eras long past, they have failed to
create regulatory framework for emerging services. Taxis are largely divided
into two categories:
a)
Permit
Taxis with Meters for point to point services - include Black & Yellow cabs
(single driver who applies for a permit and runs a B&Y) and Fleet Cabs (a
large fleet cab company that buys expensive licenses & permits and then
contracts the vehicles to drivers)
b)
Tourist
Taxis for long term hire
Now women
taxi services are point to point services but there is no permit provision for
them. Unlike B&Y drivers, women drivers don’t have the wherewithal to buy their
own cab, maintain it and source their own business. They need the support of a
Fleet Cab firm - but since women’s fleet services are so small they are not
eligible for fleet licenses which usually start at 100 cabs a fleet; nor can
these small companies afford these fleet permits which are auctioned in lakhs.
So all women’s taxi services are working loosely as Tourist Taxis, which is technically
incorrect.
An
interesting point to be noted here is that there is absolutely no regulatory
framework presently for aggregator services like Uber which have gone above the
head of the permits system, roped in small time tourist taxi operators and
posed as a Fleet Cab Service. Transport Authorities do not require tourist taxi
companies to furnish details of their drivers – hence the aggregator services have
no clue who the drivers of the tourist taxis are.
Ever since the
Uber Cab rape incident in Delhi the concept of women’s taxi services is in
focus. So the media covered existing operators, ran stories on the grit of the
KungFu drivers and the phone numbers of the service providers were flashed on
social media and whatsapp. But where were the cabs to service this demand –
forced into losses and extinction.
In all this hoopla what
really added to insult to injury was certain aggregator services making tall
claims that they would start women’s taxi services. These aggregator services
don’t even know the names of the drivers who they enroll through their mass technology
platforms– they think they can run a women’s taxi service where the employers
have to handhold, nurture the women – be with them when their child is sick and
stand with them when they get beaten by their husbands? Or have they designed
an app for that too?
Starting and
running a women’s taxi service is a labour of love, it is a commitment to
change the way women are treated in our society. In India it’s really difficult
to get funding for social enterprises so small do-gooder firms cannot scale up.
And it is really sad that those who can are not interest, not the transport
authorities, not the NGOs, and certainly not the big businesses & investors.
100s of crores are invested in applications and technology, which is excellent
but last checked, vehicles still need human drivers and don’t work on
autopilot. Larger companies need to understand employee challenges before
entering a human resource dependent arena. And those displaying concern for
women’s safety, they need to get more skin in the game if they wish to employ
women drivers and scale the model.
Sincerely,
Preeti Sharma
Menon
Founder & Promoter Viira Cabs
preeti@viiracabs.com
The booking number to call for Viira Cabs is 9819806120
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