The IT corridor is now a notch higher in terms of women employees’ safety, thanks to ‘She Shuttles’. In a unique but laudable initiative, two all-women buses will ply on loop covering all the important junctions in Madhapur, Gachibowli and surrounding areas from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The shuttle being absolutely free coupled with a chance to track the bus real-time by the employees is expected to improve the sheen of the initiative. The ‘She Shuttle’ buses, an initiative of Society of Cyberabad Security Council (SCSC), were flagged off on Monday morning by Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao and Transport Minister Mahender Reddy.

Speaking at the launch event, the IT Minister informed that additional buses will be added to the service soon. “We are planning to add four more buses as we are confident that the initiative will be a roaring success. Out of 3.5 lakh IT employees working in Cyberabad, one-third are women. Our Government emphasizes on the safety and security of these employees and our commitment is towards making Hyderabad a safer city with smart technologies.”

An app, ‘Reach Safe’ developed by Votary Tech will be installed in the buses which will aid real-time monitoring and also comes with one-touch Police alert. The passive app can be downloaded by women employees too for dynamic location details of the buses besides safety features.

Bharani Kumar Aroll, Secretary, SCSC said that the bus service will be closely monitored by a command and control centre in Cyberabad commissionerate. He said that whenever an alert is raised, police teams will be able to reach the location within minutes.

Cyberabad commissioner C.V. Anand said that he hoped to see the service expand to more fleet of buses as well as to newer areas in future. Transport Minister Mahender Reddy, said that as part of making the city roads safe, the Government will soon introduce stringent laws to punish speed violators. He said that many cases of accidents in the city was due to overspeeding and racing which needs to be curbed immediately.

The ‘She-Shuttle’ buses had been procured at a cost of Rs 40 lakhs by the funds released by TSIIC and the operating and maintenance costs of the service wil be sponsored by DLF IT Park and Ascendas IT Park.