Empowering women ragpickers

AHMEDABAD: The Self Employed Women's Association (Sewa) has introduced a unique battery-powered rickshaw to lessen the burden of waste carried by woman ragpickers of the city. Developed by the Sewa technology cell, the special rickshaw is aimed at reducing the use of force to drive the pedal rickshaw.

"Women ragpickers in the city travel long distances, sometimes more than 30 km, to collect waste, bring it to a place to sort the scrap, and then take it to scrap dealer's shop. Even if they use shared rickshaws, they still have to spend Rs 20-25 on rickshaws to transfer the collected waste which eat into their meagre earnings," said Manali Shah of Sewa.

"The rickshaw has been developed at a cost of Rs 10,000 and is currently being used on a pilot project basis by one Gauriben in Paldi-Vasna area," Shah said.

"The feedback is good and soon we will introduce more rickshaws. We will determine pick-up points so that more women are able to use this rickshaw for a nominal fee," she added.