Ola to build women driver-entrepreneurs' workforce

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Ola has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Empower Pragati , an investee company of NSDC, and Automotive Skills Development Council for training, skill development and empowerment of women drivers on its platform.

The joint project will involve Ola, Empower Pragati and ASDC by identifying women from various sections of the society and up-skilling them to become driver-entrepreneurs on the Ola platform.

The program will focus on supporting entrepreneurship, workforce skill development training and computer literacy giving women driver partners, access to a government recognized ASDC certificate.

The joint project will also work towards building a framework to enable safe working environment in the industry. The program will be rolled out initially in Delhi, followed by major cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune spanning into cities across India in the next few months.

Arvind Singhatiya, vice president – Corporate Affairs at Ola said,"Ola,as a technology platform will help create opportunities for these trained drivers by giving them access to infrastructure, financing and continuous revenue. We are all working towards a common goal and that makes this partnership powerful. Ola aims to add 50,000 women drivers to its platform in the next three years with local as well as national partnerships to mobilize, train and engage women as driver-entrepreneurs on its platform.

”Rajiv Sharma, Managing Director of Empower Pragati said, “This is a project very close to our hearts because of the positive impact it will have on women and their families. We are a social enterprise specializing in livelihood skill training of underprivileged youth and will take care of designing and implementing this project. We will leverage on our experience of training more than 70,000 youth, about 40% of who were women, across 20 states and 11 industry sectors since our inception in 2010”.

Training: Upon a successful registration for the program, identified women will commence the training from highly trained teachers. The training modules include - Driving theory and practice, basic mechanic skills and map reading. Communication and spoken English classes are given to all the women so that for improved customer experience.

Financial independence: During this training period women will be taught financial literacy.