No colour if it is not pink, insisted the Chandigarh administration when it had to order ‘luxury’ auto rickshaws. The insistence paid off and first batch of 10 svelte pink beauties finally took to the city’s roads last week. They came with a fancy name too: Tuk-Tuk.

The bubblegum pink Tuk Tuks are part of Chandigarh’s first dial-an-auto service and passengers are welcomed on board with free newspapers and a bottle of mineral water—everything to make them look forward to the ride. The autos also sport a state-of-the-art global positioning system.

The autos were launched in Chandigarh last week, more than a month after the official launch and two companies, Indus Travels and Tricity, have initially been allotted the license to run the service. What makes the Tuk-Tuks even more appealing is that they are the first to have women drivers. Like Alka Thapa, 26, who negotiates Chandigarh’s roundabouts with ease. “There are two women in a total fleet of 10 drivers. We have fixed hours and work in shifts. Our company is hiring more women drivers. I guess a woman passenger would feel more secure while travelling in the company of a woman driver,” says Thapa who works with Tricity. She points to the GPS in her auto, explaining that it is linked to company’s control centre, which allows them to track the rickshaw. “This is especially important for young girls who work late. In fact, the day these Tuk-Tuks were launched, we got calls from parents who asked if they could hire our service on a monthly basis, to drop and pick up their daughters from their colleges, schools and offices,” she says. Thapa says all 10 Tuk-Tuks were booked the very day they were launched.

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