“I used to work for long hours but the payment was very little, just ₹,3000-4,000 a month. Today, I am my own master and earn much more,” says Mariya, a young woman who started driving an e-rickshaw six months ago in the historic town of Allahabad. Mariya previously worked as a helper for a private agency in a hospital. Today, she owns an e-rickshaw and earns, on an average, ₹500-600 a day.

“My day starts at 7 am when I take commuters from civil lines to the railway station and elsewhere. I work till 5 pm and have enough time left to study as well.” Though Mariya loves driving, she ultimately wants to become a lawyer. Right now her aim is to chip in towards the education of her three younger siblings and pay back the loan for her vehicle. “I have already paid three instalments of Rs ₹2,843 per month.”

Her role model is Sapna Giri, an e-rickshaw driver who introduced her to the start-up social enterprise, SMV Green Solutions, which helped her get the loan for the rickshaw under its Vahini project.

Sporting a cap and dressed in trouser and shirt, Giri is a familiar face on the roads of Allahabad. She has been ferrying commuters for the last eight years. Earlier she used to rent the vehicle for ₹400 a day, but thanks to the Vahini project, started in December last year, she owns one now.

Support provided under project Vahini includes loans for buying e-rickshaws at reduced interest rates, training in driving, assistance in acquiring a licence, personal and vehicular insurances and equipping rickshaws with special safety provisions.

Head of Business Development, SMV Green Solutions Pvt Ltd, Abhishek Dwivedi says the e-rickshaws have CCTVs equipped with features that enable families of the women drivers monitor their movement and safety from their smart mobile phones. Other security features like panic button are also going to be installed soon. Project Vahini also enables regular bookings for the drivers for tasks such as dropping and fetching students from schools and colleges or delivering goods to retail outlets. The company is in the process of speaking to companies like Ola for bookings for e-rickshaws.

Both Giri and Mariya say commuters are usually nice but the police, they allege, not only uses bad language but also harasses women drivers more than the men drivers. Giri, who is equipped with karate skills, recalls a particularly unpleasant incident. “Once a policeman abused me, and when I reacted, he tried to break the CCTV in my e-rickshaw.” But the struggle that she experienced in her early years has made her strong-willed enough to deal with any situation. Giri mostly takes bookings or commuters on a sharing basis. She also tries to help other women e-rickshaw drivers get regular bookings.

Yet another initiative in the pipeline that will benefit the e-rickshaw owners as well as the start-up is opening electric battery swap stations. Many of the e-rickshaw drivers do not have power connections of their own and have to waste several hours getting their vehicle batteries charged. The swap outlets will provide e-rickshaw drivers access to lithium ion batteries at lower cost and also eliminate the delay in charging batteries and hassles related to their maintenance. Once this happens, drivers like Giri will save precious time lost in charging of batteries. “Right now I have to leave my e-rickshaw at an outlet for battery charging as the owner of my rented accommodation does not allow the power connection to be used for this purpose. All that will change,” says Giri.

Changing mindsets

As of now not many women are associated with the Vahini project, but several others like Meena John, a graduate, want to become part of the project. John already has an e-rickshaw which is driven by her during the day and if need be by her husband in the evening. Mother of two daughters, John feels that an association with an organisation is always beneficial. “I want my vehicle to be equipped with safety provisions that Vahini provides but more than that the organisation helps in getting bookings and lends support in several other ways,” she says. “We do not just provide an e-rickshaw but forge a partnership with them,” says Dwivedi.

Naveen Krishna, Managing Director, SMV Green Solutions, talks about the challenges they are facing in engaging and empowering women for the job. “It is not just the question of women who want to drive rickshaws, but the need to change the mindset of the men folk in the family. Our challenge is to allay their apprehensions and convince them to make women equal partners in this endeavour. Making a living from a profession that is male-dominated will give financial freedom and boost the self-esteem of these women e-rickshaw drivers,” he says.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi

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