Pink City Rickshaw Puts Women in the Driver’s Seat

Every morning, 33-year-old Poonam Devi sends her teenage daughters off to school in Jaipur, exchanges her sari for her uniform of salwar kameez, a more practical outfit consisting of a long shirt with baggy pants, and begins her day’s work in a bright pink electric auto rickshaw. 

Even today, people in this city joke that it is easier to spot a leopard in the nearby jungle than it is to see a woman driving one of the three-wheeled beasts so ubiquitous on its crowded roads, so she attracts more than her fair share of attention. “I’ve been driving this auto since 2018,” Poonam says. “People still stare at me.” But it is worth it, she says: “A woman in a traditional Rajasthani home is usually just confined to her home and neighborhood. Driving a rickshaw and chatting with tourists from different countries has made me realize that the world is vast, full of interesting people, places and experiences.” 

Poonam is one of the 200 or so women who have been trained by the Indian nonprofit ACCESS Development Services to drive electric auto rickshaws (locally called e-autos) in Jaipur. ACCESS was established in 2006 with the aim of incubating innovative businesses and providing livelihoods for the poor. In 2016, when the nonprofit came to Jaipur, women made up barely one-third of the state’s workforce, according to the 2011 census. And over 75 percent of those working were in the agricultural sector, where earnings are low and the working conditions harsh. 

“This was really what we wanted to change,” Vipin Sharma, CEO of ACCESS, recalls. “We wanted not just to empower women with a marketable skill, but to develop a business that gave them an aspirational income, flexible work hours and also a bit of excitement!” At that time, there were no female e-auto drivers in the city. But the nonprofit decided that an all-women company that offered sustainable and authentic tours, on which visitors could glimpse the Pink City through the eyes of women, was exactly what Jaipur — and its women — needed.

ACCESS had plenty of success stories to pull from: Initiatives to train women to provide transport and mobility services have been implemented across the world. For example, Women on Wheels (WOW) provides women in Pakistan with the opportunity to learn how to drive and work as professional drivers. Volvo Trucks, in collaboration with Lafarge, launched the AccelerateHer initiative in South Africa to train women as truck drivers and owner-operators. 

But unlike these initiatives, where women have been taught to drive and given jobs, at the Pink City Rickshaw Company (PCRC), they are in the driver’s seat both literally and figuratively as they also get to run the business.

The first challenge the project faced was simply getting women who had barely ever stepped out of their homes to sign up to become e-rickshaw drivers. “The most common refrain we heard from men was, ‘How can I allow my wife, sister or daughter to drive?’” Sharma says. Such hesitation is echoed the world over: women are severely underrepresented in the mobility sector, comprising only 17 percent of the transport workforce across 46 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin and North America.

Fifty-year-old Bhagwati Devi, a widow with four children, recalls when a neighbor told her about “a crazy project” that was training women to drive e-auto rickshaws. “I used to do enamelwork on metal to make ends meet, and it was a hard life,” she says. She does not know what impulse made her sign up for the PCRC training program. “I was so scared,” she recalls. “Nobody in my family had ever driven a vehicle, how would they react to me being the first? How would I find my way around the entire city when my life had been restricted only to my house and neighborhood?” She became a part of the first cohort of women trainee drivers in 2016. 

It took ACCESS almost six months to put together a program that trained women to drive, interact with tourists and run the business. In 2019, the nonprofit stepped back. Since then, PCRC’s board of directors has consisted solely of women trained under this project. The CEO, Gopesh Joshi, represents ACCESS and looks after marketing and fundraising. PCRC has also hired an accountant to handle finances. The company owns 21 electric autos and plans to add 10 more by the end of 2025. So far, it has trained over 200 women and currently has an active roster of 45 available drivers. 

The drivers earn just under $8 U.S. per ride and up to $350 per month (the state’s per capita income is roughly $150). Joshi estimates that in the high season, the company earns up to $15,000 a month. And in the low season, PCRC focuses on the repair and maintenance of its fleet, adding new vehicles and training more drivers. “This summer, we’re adding functional English classes so our drivers can better interact with tourists,” he says. 

So far, PCRC’s five tours, each designed to give their customers a slow, sustainable and authentic experience of Jaipur, have met with an enthusiastic response from guests. The early morning tour reveals the city as it awakens, while late evening tours take guests to shops and local hangouts that people on the typical tourist circuit might miss. PCRC likes to build relationships with its guests, according to Poonam. “Many have kept in touch and travel with us whenever they come to Jaipur,” she says. “And [we] often double our monthly earnings through tips.” 

While financial stability is important, PCRC’s drivers have gained much more than that from this enterprise. For Bhagwati, and most of PCRC’s drivers, the first time behind the wheel was transformative: “I ditched my sari for the smart uniform and felt a sense of independence,” she recalls. Another driver, Lalita Devi, 40, says, “It’s hard to even explain how nervous and underconfident one feels when one is restricted to one’s home, expected to only cook and clean and rear children. Driving for PCRC changed that.” 

The flexible work hours have helped drivers balance their home and professional lives, and as Poonam explains, “this is what has ensured that most of us have been able to sustain our jobs.” Like many of PCRC’s drivers, Poonam has used her earnings to send her daughters, aged 15 and 17, to better schools and is teaching them the value of being financially independent. 

A strong sense of sisterhood has added to the drivers’ confidence. Recently, a newcomer to the project got into a road accident. “We all pitched in with her medical bills, counseled her and helped her get back behind the wheel again,” Lalita recalls. “It really helps to know I’m not alone.” 

Many PCRC drivers now drive other vehicles, and some have received training in mechanical repairs. Over 15 women who learned to drive through PCRC have bought their own e-autos and now run their own independent businesses. “For me, the fact that ACCESS was able to train these ladies, and empower them to start their own businesses, is our biggest impact,” Sharma says. The other impact is that ACCESS has been able to replicate the project in two new locations. 

In September 2024, teams from ACCESS and PCRC launched a new project in Varanasi, the Holy City Rickshaw Company. Funded by Intrepid Foundation, the charity arm of the Australian travel company, it now has 25 woman drivers and 12 e-autos. Another branch, Lake City Rickshaw Company, is slated to hit the road in Udaipur, Rajasthan, by August 2025. Poonam and other drivers in Jaipur have trained women in both locations. And the growth is ongoing: ACCESS wants to expand to a total of 10 locations by 2026. 

Every such expansion is capital-intensive, according to Suvendu Rout, who manages non-farming projects at ACCESS. Each vehicle costs about Rs 1.75 lakh (about $2,000), and needs to be properly parked, charged and maintained. But the market response that these bright pink vehicles have received in Jaipur gives the nonprofit reason for optimism. 

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“We’re now getting commissions even in the low season, mostly from exhibitions, events and weddings,” Lalita says. “Recently, I even got to lead a wedding procession with the groom sitting in my auto!” The specially fabricated vehicles (pink in Jaipur, saffron in Varanasi and blue in Udaipur), retractable roofs and plush seats are attracting attention too. When U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance recently visited Jaipur with his family, they too had a Pink City Rickshaw at their disposal at their hotel, though it was driven by Vance’s staff for security reasons. 

Meanwhile, in Jaipur, Bhagwati says that at the end of the day, she feels like she has accomplished something worthwhile. “I still change into a traditional sari and cover my head,” she says, “but I know that tomorrow, once again, I’ll get into my rickshaw and experience the freedom of the road!”