While ensuring a secure way of transport for women in the city and offering a means of employment to another set of women at the same time, the City Corporation is gearing up to roll out its project of training women in autorickshaw driving and buying them the vehicles.

The budget announcement of the current fiscal, ‘Snehasanchari’, is envisaged as a project that can train 100 women and buy them autorickshaws. In a month-and-a-half, the civic body will initiate steps to find eligible beneficiaries for training.

“The project will be realised by joining hands with Kudumbashree. The plan is to identify women, members of Ayalkoottam, who hold driving licence and train them in autorickshaw driving. Women with a lower income are preferred,” said welfare standing committee chairman Palayam Rajan. An estimate of Rs 50 lakh has been prepared and a detailed plan will be chalked out by the civic body before the kick-off.

Women with a low income from the four Community Development Societies (CDS) will be selected to be trained and more guidelines will be spelt out in the detailed plan. Meanwhile, for buying the autorickshaws, a subsidy given by the City Corporation and beneficiary share by arranging bank loan will be pooled in.

“There are so many women in the CDS units, who have taken driving licence and cannot utilise their skills as a means of employment as they do not have the money to buy a vehicle. If the project comes about, it would be of great help to them,” said Vijayakumari S, chairperson of the Kudappanakkunnu CDS.

In the previous financial year, though a similar project was included, it failed to take off. Called ‘Sarathy’, it was aimed at training women in driving autorickshaws and for setting up an exclusive stand for the women-driven autorickshaws.