Union Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday mooted the idea of women taxi service exclusively for female travellers and said government is in talks with some business enterprises to launch this facility. Gandhi's comments came against the backdrop of growing outrage over the alleged rape of a 27-year-old woman executive on Friday night in the National Capital Region by a driver of international taxi-booking service Uber.
The Union Women and Child Development Minister also sought to link overpopulation with crime as she lamented that continuing incidents of rapes indicated a "cultural problem". The Minister asked companies to look after the "welfare" of its employees before putting the "onus on the government". "I think the question is not putting the onus on the government. The question is that every company should look after their welfare as well," she said.
Listing women taxi service as one such welfare measure, she said that the government is in talks with "business people" to start such services. "One of the ways would be to have female taxi services.
We have talked to business people to start such services. If necessary we will pay for the training of the drivers," Gandhi said, adding that it is "an idea whose time has come".
Gandhi said that the rapes are happening despite "strict laws" being in force as the judicial system takes too long to respond. "We have strict laws that give no quarter to rapists or to murderers and yet these things continue to happen. Obviously it's a cultural problem," Gandhi told a news channel.
"If the judicial system would just work better and faster people would be more scared but it takes such a long time then a lot of people lose their fear of committing crime," she added. "In an overpopulous country there will be a huge amount of crime and this crime is usually angled against what is perceived to be the weaker person and in this case it is this poor girl. What can we do?," she said reacting to the woman executive rape case.
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