Visakhapatnam: City women are increasingly taking on the wheel and quite literally.District deputy transport commissioner of Visakhapatnam Road Transport Authority (RTA) S Venkateswara Rao on Monday revealed that the city has nearly eight lakh private vehicles and women drive nearly 10% of them.The share of issuance of permanent driving licence to women have increased to nearly 25% against the 7.9% in 2013, Rao added.“Over the years, women in the city have swapped the passenger seat for the driver’s seat. We received a tremendous response from women for our learner’s licence fairs. Most of them take licences for both two-wheeler and four-wheeler. We hope that of those nearly 10% have at least been driving the autos to eke out a living,” Khan added.RTA sources said most women who are applying for a driving licence are in the age group of 18-35 years. Nearly 30% of the 1 lakh learner’s licences, issued in 2018, went to women,” Rao told TOI.Bhuti Revathi, a government school teacher, said “I recently purchased a two-wheeler to commute between the school and home, besides going out with my children without depending on my husband.”Apart from driving personal vehicles, a section of women have come forward to drive public vehicles like autorickshaws and taxies, said AH Khan, member of Visakhapatnam road safety committee.“Last year nearly 1,000 women got driving licences to run autorickshaws in the city.
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