Funded by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development’s Nirbhaya Fund, the Kolkata Traffic Police and the State Transport Department, will be implementing a gender sensitisation programme for the cab and taxi drivers in the city. The aim of the programme is to ensure that women passengers can commute safely in app-based cabs and taxis even during night.

Dubbed as “This Car Respects Women”, the initiative will be rolled out from Tuesday by Traffic Police's South East Guard.

To be carried out by the Kolkata Police Training Academy and officers of traffic police jointly, it will train drivers appropriate behaviour with women passengers, especially during the night.

The programme intends to bring about a change in drivers’ behaviour as many incidents of misbehaviour have been reported in the past.

A senior official told the media: “In the past couple of years, we have witnessed several incidents of app-cab drivers misbehaving with women passengers. There are incidents of women being harassed by cab drivers. So to ensure that the city is safe for women commuters, we will be starting the training programme from the South East Traffic Guard.”

In its report TOI stated that the training will include topics like sexual harassment and violence against women on public transport as well as how to appropriately interact with female passengers. There will be two sessions of 75 minutes each.

These sessions will be addressed by psychiatrists, college lecturers, and gender experts.

After successfully completing the sessions, the drivers will receive a certificate and sticker that reads “This Car Respects Women”, which will be pasted on the windshield.

Plans are afoot to train bus conductors after the programme with app-cab drivers gets over.

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