Parents tremble as girls on night shift walk unsafe roads

Bangalore Mirror

Bangalore, 07 April 2011: Women employees at Tesco, returning home late after work, are reportedly dropped a kilometre or two from doorstep, putting their safety at grave risk.

 

A lot of women employees working for Tesco in Whitefield are finding it unsafe to reach home after the late shift around midnight. The office cabs that are supposed to drop them at their doorstep - often more than an hour’s drive from Whitefield to various parts of the city - actually drop them a kilometre or two from their homes. For those women working the graveyard hours, this means they have to walk home unaccompanied past dark, lonely streets where potential harm lurks just around the corner.

 

 

Tesco’s employees have been reportedly facing this problem since March 1 and it has led to a fear psychosis among the concerned women and their families. With the rape and murder of Pratibha Srikantamurthy still too fresh in the collective consciousness of the city, fail-proof transport facilities for women employees working the night shifts is not a thing to be taken lightly.

 

Several parents of employees at Tesco, which has a staff strength of more than 4,500, have spoken out in this regard. Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, Urvashi (name changed), an employee’s mother said: “My daughter works at Tesco, Whitefield in the UK shift. Of late, no regular transport arrangements are being made for her while returning from work. On several occasions, she has had to either walk two kilometres to reach home or the same distance to be picked-up on the way to office.”

 

Many parents of the women employees initially assumed that it was a temporary glitch on Tesco’s part. But with the problem continuing for more than a month now, it is giving most parents sleepless nights. “My daughter has to walk 1.5 kms every day to board the office cab. This is positively dangerous when she is on the night shift. I am unable to sleep till she calls after reaching office. I don’t know how long this is going to last,” said Ramakrishna (name changed), a resident of Rajajinagar.

 

The Tesco management acknowledged that its women employees are indeed facing a problem. Priyadarshini, an executive with Mutual PR, a public relations agency specifically authorised by Tesco to speak on such problems, said: “We had outsourced transport service to a city-based private agency. Following complaints by our employees over poor quality of service, we decided to terminate the contract with them.

 

We served them a legal notice during the last week of February. Though we have terminated the contract, their service cannot be stopped immediately.”

 

Added Ira Pradhan, an executive with Tesco’s corporate communications division, “We have been trying our best to make the service better from what it was earlier. But that takes time.” She revealed that the new system the company is installing will include the latest technology for tracking office cabs as they ferry employees from office to home and vice versa.

 

The police, however, are not prepared for any laxity in this regard. T Sunil Kumar, Additional Police Commissioner (Law & Order), Bangalore city, said: “If anything happens to an employee while on duty, it would be considered the company’s fault. Women employees should be provided suitable transport facilities and no woman should be allowed to travel alone in a vehicle, and no woman employee should be made to wait for long on the road. If any company is found violating these guidelines we will definitely take action against them.”

 

The labour commissioner’s office too is seized of the matter. “After 8 pm, companies should make proper transport arrangements to pick and drop women employees. If any employee complains to us, we will look into it and take action against the company,” said Labour Commissioner M S Ravishankar.