Despite much hullaballoo across the nation about safety of women in hired taxies, the capital city of Jharkhand seems to be oblivious of the matter. For, there is no mechanism to ensure women’s safety in hired vehicles within the State capital and the authorities are still mulling about introducing a system for averting any such incident here.
“It is unfortunate that no verification of a driver working for a hired auto or taxi service is done by the district administration. We have been lacking the mechanism for last 13 or 14 years. Women passengers are obviously not safe in such vehicles,” said City Superintendent of Police (SP) Anoop Birtharay.In order to tackle such situations, the police department will soon send a notice to all the travel agencies. “In the next 15 days, we will send notices for drivers’ verification to all the travel agencies. Each driver will have to submit their photo, mobile number, permanent and correspondence addresses to the nearest police station. They will be given a time of 30 days to complete the formalities. Strict action would be taken against those who fail to follow,” said Birtharay.
Meanwhile, travel agencies in the capital claimed to recruit drivers only after having a character- proof of the latter. “We keep drivers who are experienced. If required, we try to find out his behaviour from the organization he had been associated earlier,” said an owner of travel agency at Kokar.Similarly, owner of Fly Fit Travels at Argora Bypass said they never allow drivers without a character certificate approved by a gazetted officer. “Submitting a character certificate is mandatory for our drivers whether working on temporary or permanent basis,” added the owner.
The matter seemed ‘new’ to Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) officials. “I have never heard about such verification and cannot say who is authorized to keep a vigil eye over the verification in our department,” RMC Mayor Asha lakra said.Incidents related to Uber cab is not something new at Ranchi. In April 2012, a middle-aged woman was gang raped by others and a driver of the auto-rickshaw she had taken from Ashok Nagar to her home in Kadru. Next day, she was spotted injured by a girl. Immediately, she was taken to Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) for treatment but was declared dead on the way.
For the women passengers also, the verification is the need of the hour. Oishi Das pursuing her under graduation in Delhi University said she often has to request her father to pick her up from the Ranchi Railway station when she visits home in vacations. Asked the reason, she said, “Travelling in auto or taxi during night hours is not at all safe here.”