Safety first, financial empowerment can wait.

Even a free training schedule from May 1 was ready but not a single woman came up to take the wheel of the innumerable black and yellow three-wheelers.

Rajkumar Jha, the general secretary of the Bihar State Autorickshaw Drivers’ Association and Patna District Autorickshaw Drivers’ Association, was quite unhappy as there was no taker for his association’s training programme.

“We decided to provide free training to interested women who are above 18 years. It is quite surprising for us that not a single woman has come forward for our free training plan. It shows women are still very conservative in this state,” Jha said.

Whether Jha is right or the women really want to come out of their cocooned self is debatable but reality is quite startling, especially when the state government offered cent per cent tax exemption to women who would purchase a commercial vehicle in their name and drive the same. In absence of any formal application form or an advertisement, interested women might not have the information of free training also.

Jha said the association would advertise the scheme for women in the coming few weeks — something he promised in the first week of April, too — and would go on a door-to-door campaign to request women in joining the existing 25,000 male drivers.

Jha said: “The only thing we need to do is to create a little more awareness. Soon, we are going to distribute pamphlets on this free training programme. Some families might raise an objection even if the woman is convinced. We would try to convince the families concerned also.”

But a majority of autorickshaw drivers and commuters said driving the three-wheeler was not meant for women. “Commercial driving is still not a woman’s cup of tea in the state. Why would a woman like to work in an autorickshaw, leaving their household chores and other works? Even if they decide to do it, I don’t think their family would allow them because of safety concerns,” said Santosh Singh (38), an autorickshaw driver.

Jha iterated his association’s plan to take care of the safety factor of women autorickshaw drivers. “We would train women and get them work in prepaid autorickshaws. No woman driver would be allowed to ply after 6pm. Also, we would take their as well as the passengers’ cellphone numbers so that if a woman autorickshaw driver does not come back within a stipulated time at the pre-paid autorickshaw stand, we can call them up to know their whereabouts. We would also give our cellphone number to the drivers so that in case of any problem they can contact us. Women autorickshaw drivers would take only women passengers and those male passengers travelling with their families,” said Jha.

However, residents are still apprehensive about the safety of women autorickshaw drivers.

“Molestation cases in daylight are not isolated incidents. Even in case of fixed routes, what if a passenger gives direction to the woman autorickshaw driver to take them to a lonely place and misbehaves with her? It might also happen that the driver tries to contact the association members over phone but cannot contact them,” said Nileema Jain (52), a homemaker of Kadamkuan.