Women professionals hit as diesel cabs go off Delhi roads

New Delhi: Diesel cab owners stage a demonstration against Supreme Court ban on diesel vehicles in New Delhi (File Photo: IANS)

New Delhi – Hundreds of women professionals, particularly those working in BPOs and IT firms, are facing commuting problems as Delhi’s diesel cabs have been forced off the road by the Supreme Court, which has refused to extend time for their conversion to CNG.

Women employees of Business Process Outsourcing and Information Technology firms told IANS that the doorstep pick-up cab facility provided to them by their companies has been suspended or curtailed.

A women IT professional, working as a senior software engineer in Gurgaon’s Udyog Vihar area, said: “We used to get the cab facility from our office earlier, but not for the past two days.”

She said there was limited public transport in Gurgaon and any disruption in the cab service was “very inconvenient”.

“I feel unsafe while travelling after sunset. Also, options to commute are very limited,” she said.

According to the Delhi government, over 60,000 diesel cabs are registered in the national capital, including about 29,000 cabs with all-India permits. The remaining have city permits.

A few female professionals said their offices have told them that cabs will be provided only to employees working in the shifts between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m.

“For the last two days, I have been taking a taxi on my own to reach office as the Metro is fully packed during office hours,” said a woman IT professional at a Noida firm.

She said some of her office colleagues were reaching office by changing to different modes of transport.

The Supreme Court on Saturday refused to give more time to taxi operators in Delhi and the National Capital Region to switch to the cleaner compressed natural gas.

A bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur also asked the Delhi government to give a roadmap for phasing out diesel cabs and switching over to CNG fuel in the city.

Diesel taxi drivers and owners on Monday and Tuesday blocked several important intersections in the national capital for hours, leading to massive jams.