PUNE: It’s a cab service women will love. Here’s why — it’s being run for women and best of all, by women. It is being launched in the city by city-based K K Travels.

The service, named ‘Nari Cab’, will be launched today — March 8 — to mark International Women’s Day.

The cabs will be driven by women drivers and only women passengers can avail the service. About ten cabs driven by women for women will ply in city and Pimpri-Chinchwad from today onwards. The charges will be Rs 12 per km and a concession of 10 per cent will be given to senior citizens.

“The number of these cabs will soon go up to 50. The cabs will ply anywhere in the city and even to Pimpri Chinchwad. We have been in the transport service for 25 years and we thought of launching this service in view of the increasing incidents of crimes against women during travelling. Even Pune has witnessed such incidents and therefore, we think, this service is the need of the hour. The women drivers are also trained in self defence,” said the owner of K K Travels, Kedar Kasar.

The cabs will run from 6 am to 8 pm. The attractive pink coloured cabs are equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) which facilitates tracking the vehicle. A few cabs will be stationed near the IT campuses in Magarpatta and Hinjewadi for female IT professionals.

“We will soon be launching night service too. This will particularly help female IT professionals considering the untoward incidents that have occurred in the past. Talks with some IT companies are also on to provide this service to their female employees,” said Kasar.

He stated a Pune-Mumbai-Pune cab service for women by women will also be launched soon.

One of the drivers, Kalpana Kadam said she had been driving a van to drop children to school for the last four years and joined Nari Cab as it was an unique service. The self defence training provided to all women drivers had diminished their fears to a great extent, she added.