Indian women contribute just 18 per cent of national GDP, one of the lowest proportions in the world. This reflects the fact that only 25 per cent of India’s labour force is female.

Further, India can improve its GDP by USD 0.7 trillion in 2025 with about 70 per cent of the increase coming from bringing 68 million more women into the economy.

Many studies have been undertaken to understand the reason for this low number. For urban areas, various societal, economic and infrastructural issues came up as major constrains limiting the contribution of females into work force and preventing them from participating in economic activities as freely as men. Amongst many others, one of the leading constraint is poor, inaccessible and unsafe public transport system. A report on Women and Transport in Indian Cities found that while 73 per cent of urban work trips were by sustainable public modes of transport, women and girls’ share was only 14 per cent.

Situation is not any better in nation’s capital. For the first time, Census of India (2011) released data on the “Mode of Travel to Work” for those not involved in agriculture and household industry, termed as “other workers”.

A closer look at the data of NCT of Delhi (Table 1 below) depicts that “other workers” population, using different modes of travel, comprises only 15 per cent of females.

From the above table, it is clearly evident that of the total work trips made by women in Delhi, public, intermediate public and non-motorised modes of transport (taken together) are used commonly. This is because of various factors such as affordability, coverage, frequency, comfort etc. Given a choice and with increase in individual monthly incomes, the stated preference for public transport sharply reduces, states a report.

One of the major factors responsible for this shift and overall low preference for public transport by women is Safety. According to a research, 91 per cent of women felt that public transport is unsafe.  Women often face sexual harassment, aggression / violence, teasing and many other forms of unwelcome behavior in the public transport.

Recently, the Crime in India (CII) Report for the year 2017 was released by the National Crime Records Bureau.

The report indicated that the number of crimes committed against women (nationwide) have increased in 2017 by 6% compared to 2016 and by 9% compared to 2015. Delhi stood second (after Lucknow) in crime against women (both IPC+SLL) in Metropolitan Cities[i].

At the same time, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, made two major announcements. These are: 1) Free rides for women on all DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) and cluster buses from October 29 in order to “ensure their safety” and 2) Increase in number of marshals in the buses to nearly 13,000 from current strength of 3400 from October 29 “to ensure safety of women in each government bus and generate confidence in them”. He mentioned that these steps are been undertaken "to encourage them (women) to use public transport" and would also help “to close the socio-economic gap between men and women”.

These announcements have been trending in media with some touting them as ‘freebies to woo voters’ while others think these are political gimmicks. Whatever may be the real reason behind these, if they manage to curb the issue of unsafe public transport, it will definitely bring some relief to Delhi commuters especially women. However, it is too early to comment on this and the actual challenge now will be the effective implementation of these.

A report by CBGA and Jagori (2017) studied the provision of marshals and home guards in the DTC buses (as mentioned in the Finance Minister’s Budget Speech of GNCTD, 2016-17) and revealed that the number of home guards and marshals deployed, and their working shifts, vary significantly from depot to depot. It further argues that ‘while these may serve the purpose to some extent, the actual challenges of ensuring safety is related to both the weak institutional capacity of DTC and poor implementation of specific initiatives.’

Hence, it is evident that the issue of unsafe and inaccessible urban mobility needs to be resolved holistically. Like in any other sector, it should begin from planning and should not be considered complete without proper and effective implementation which needs to be monitored from time to time. It further requires addressing multiple gender gaps that exist in our urban transport system. Mainstreaming gender in mobility planning, and implementation has long term positive economic and social consequences not only for women but for entire society.

Also, the challenge of safety and accessibility that women face in day to day travel is not limited to ensuring safety in public transport but also include other factors such as unsafe and insecure pedestrian infrastructure, poor para-transit services, unreliable and inaccessible public utilities amongst many others. Hence, emphasis should be on women’s access to public spaces including public transport and their safety therein.

The announcements by Delhi’s CM, sound lucrative but till the time these are implemented effectively along with other initiatives to enhance the overall mobility experience of women, it would be difficult to assess their benefits and reach. Safe transport system might not be able change the societal mindsets but can definitely act as an enabler in inspiring women to participate in the workforce. We hope Delhi Government’s initiatives work well and can be a model for other states to follow. This would definitely be a step forward towards bringing more women into the economy.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author, and don’t necessarily reflect the position of CBGA. You can reach Shuchita Rawal at shuchita@cbgaindia.org.

[i] Table 3B.1, Crime Against Women(IPC+SLL) (in Metropolitan Cities) – 2015-2017, Crime In India Report 2017. IPC stands for Indian Penal Code and SLL stands for Special Acts and Local Laws.