Karnataka - Bangalore

New rules on transport for women at night

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: The State Government had tightened the rules related to transport of women employed on night duty in the information technology and IT-enabled sectors, which include call centres and business process outsourcing companies.

The Labour Commissioner has notified the amendments made for this purpose in Section 25 of the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act.

The revised rules stipulate that armed guards should be provided for vehicles transporting women employees, a proper communication network should connect the vehicles with the company and a control room should monitor the movement of all vehicles.

Managements have to get the bio-data and antecedents of drivers engaged by them verified by the police and the names, driving licence details, address and photo of the driver should be available with the company.

The employee should be informed of the vehicles number and name of the driver assigned to pick her up and any change should be informed in advance.

Supervisory staff of the company should plan every Monday or on the first working day of the week, the schedule and pick-up and drop of women employees and, in case of exigencies, the change of drivers or routes should be allowed only with prior knowledge of employees and their supervisors. Every vehicle should prominently display a route map. Managements have been cautioned against disclosing to unauthorised persons the telephone numbers, particularly mobile numbers of any woman employee.

Routes

Routes should be carefully selected so that no woman employee is the first to be picked up or the last to be dropped.

A designated supervisor of the company should make random checks on vehicles on various routes.

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