Until three months ago Mohini Bisure had never driven a car. After answering a newspaper advertisement, the 30-year-old former social worker is now behind the wheel of a “pink cab” that is available exclusively to female commuters in Bombay.

She is one of 30 women selected for a unique taxi service designed to drive low to middle-income women into a new profession, as well as to quell the fears of female customers who would rather not travel alone in a car with a strange man.

“A lot of women don’t feel safe with male drivers. With us, they will feel more comfortable,” Mrs Bisure, who received driving instruction, English-language tuition and karate training before starting work this week, said.

The Priyadarshani taxi service, staffed by women who are aged between 21 and 50 and dressed in eye-catching pink kurtas, claims to be the first of its kind in India. A service that must be booked, it is aimed at call centre workers and hotel staff who work outside office hours, as well as commuters and tourists arriving at the domestic airport.

All of the 55,000 ubiquitous black-and-yellow cabs in Bombay - one of the largest urban taxi fleets in the world - are driven by men.

“This is an unmet need,” Renuka Chowdhary, the Minister of Women and Children in India, said as the service started yesterday. “We have had a higher reporting of crime against women passengers. This is also a non-traditional job for women, so they are breaking out and becoming earning members for their families. We are confident it will catch on.”

Many of the women overcame the disapproval of friends and neighbours who thought that they should stay at home to look after their husbands and children.

Shweta Shinde, 42, applied for the job with the backing of her family and said that it had fulfilled her ambition to learn to drive. “For so many years, I wanted to have a car,” she said.

In the scheme, each woman puts down a 19,000 rupee (£232) deposit on a 369,000 rupee air-conditioned car, subsidised by Tata, the Indian conglomerate.

By paying off the balance on the low-interest loans, the women will own their taxis. They are expected to earn about 25,000 rupees a month, nearly three times the salary of a chauffeur and five times the pay of a domestic maid.

The service coincides with heightened concern among women travellers about safety in Indian cities after a series of brutal attacks.

Jyoti Chowdhary, a 22-year-old call centre worker, was raped and murdered this month by two taxi drivers in the leafy western city of Poona, in a case that sent shockwaves through the flagship IT industry of India, which is a major employer of women. The accused men were employed by a taxi company that was contracted to Wipro Technologies, the third biggest IT services company and the owner of the call centre at which Ms Chowdhary worked.

The killing has prompted campaigners for labour rights to demand better safety guidelines for call centre employees, especially those who serve the US market and clock off at nighttime in India.

Poona is home to the largest number of call centre employees after Bangalore, the IT hub of India. More than 50 car companies make 5,000 round trips a day for 40,000 employees.

Two years ago, Pratibha Murthy, a 24-year-old employee of Hewlett Packard in Bangalore, was raped and murdered by a taxi driver employed by the US computer company. The outsourcing industry reacted by introducing more stringent safety rules but, under the pressure of cost cutting, the procedures have since lapsed, according to workers.

Hit the road

— Pink Ladies, a firm offering women-only taxis in London, Carlisle, Hull and Warrington, started work in 2005 and went into administration in February 2007

— A fleet of women-only taxis began Dubai in January 2007

— Moscow’s Pink Taxi service was launched in 2006

— The 1963 film Carry on Cabby, starring Sid James and Hattie Jacques, features a war between a cab company and new all-woman firm called Glamcabs

Source: Times archives