Pink Auto: A new concept for empowering women, ensuring their safety

From our Correspondent

Bongaigaon, Jan 17: This time Pink brigade will rule the roads of Bongaigaon town. This is a completely new concept for empowering and ensuring safety to women. Not only Assam but also for the Northeast, this is a completely new concept to run Pink Auto by female drivers for female passengers. Talking to media persons, Kusumbar Choudhury, City Project Mager of City Mission project of Bongaigaon, who is the main person behind this concept, said that this would increase safety of women on the road. “Actually the concept came from an incident on March 27, 2017 when Megh (me changed), a girl of Bongaigaon, was coming in an auto and there was an attempt to kidp her. The brave girl saved herself somehow by fighting with the miscreants. After that incident, we started to think about a new concept to ensure security to women on road while hiring auto. Filly we got this concept of Pink Auto for women and implemented it today. We hope we will be able to avert such incidents now by this and also give employment to few poor women,” he said.

 The Pink Auto project has been implemented by City Mission Project, Bongaigaon under tiol Urban Livelihood Project and Bongaigaon Municipality. This project has been sponsored by Bongaigaon Refinery. Biswajit Pegu, Deputy Commissioner of Bongaigaon on Wednesday in the iugural meeting, said that this was a big step towards women empowerment.

“Already this kind of auto service is available in Odisha, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai and Delhi. But this is new for the Northeast. In first phase, total 13 Pink Autos will run in the town from  6 am to 6 pm. Only women and children can avail this Pink Auto. We ordered pink-colored autos so that people can understand that it is especially for women. This auto service will be available from Bongaigaon Chapaguri to Shahid Bedi and Paglasthan to Dangtol. We plan to connect GPS in these autos in future. Total 13 women had been given two-month training for driving autos and they had been selected through self-help groups. We hope other places will also be inspired by this concept,” he said.

 In the opening ceremony of Pink Auto held on Wednesday in Bongaigaon, several noted persons, including Phanin Bhusan Choudhury, MLA of Bongaigaon, Biswajit Pegu, Bongaigaon Deputy Commissioner, GC Sikdar, CGM , BGR,  Pranjit Bora, Additiol SP, Bongaigaon , DTO Bongaigaon  and many other dignitaries were present.

Phani Bhusan Choudhury in his speech thanked Bongaigaon district administration, Bongaigaon Refinery and others for this grand concept. “We are proud to launch this first in Bongaigaon,” he said.

Top Headlines

No stories found.
Sentinel Assam
www.sentinelassam.com