Arrive in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and you will see an unusual sight: sari-clad women with khaki jackets zipping around the city ferrying passengers in black-and-yellow auto rickshaws. They are employees of Makkal (‘people’) Auto, the brainchild of 27-year-old Mansoor Ali Khan. The autos provide a respectable job to women in need, and make the daily commute of their well-to-do counterparts safe and hassle-free.
For ordinary people in this bustling southern city, autorickshaws are both a boon and a bane. They provide that crucial last-mile connectivity, but are not always safe for women. So each Makkal auto is fitted with a tablet that has an embedded camera, audio recorder and GPS tracking system, activated if the rider taps on a ‘help’ button.
