Over the past six months we teamed up with NDTV to run Roshan Dilli (Lighting up Delhi), a campaign aimed at steering the narrative towards enhanced safety standards for women in public spaces and improving the state of street lighting in Delhi. 

The campaign focused on improved lighting in public spaces in the city, since this has a direct bearing in shaping women’s perception of safety, and enabling better access and safer mobility for them.

Launched on 8th March, 2019, International Women’s Day, Roshan Dilli aligned with our deep commitment and vision to be a part of the solution when it comes to safety, specifically for women. We have been striving relentlessly to provide a wider cross section of women access to places that aren’t served by mass transit systems. 

During the campaign, with the support of NDTV and the Delhi Government, we ensured installation of lights in multiple locations across the city, in places like the Saket District Centre, a kilometer long stretch of road near Peeragarhi Metro Station, Shivaji Marg and Mathura Road near Pragati Maidan. 

Leaders such as Rekha Sharma, Chairperson, National Commission for Women, Satyendar Jain, Transport Minister, Govt. of Delhi and celebrities like Virat Kohli, Akshay Kumar, Shilpa Rao, Gul Panag, Lily Singh, Nagesh Kukunoor, Shefali Shah, Shilpa Rao etc. have lent their support to the campaign and the cause of women’s safety. 

Make Delhi Safe, a crowdsourced initiative under this campaign was also undertaken, inviting Delhi residents to submit pictures, videos or vlogs about poorly lit areas in the city which require lighting up. Going beyond the NDTV platform, the call to action film of this initiative was taken to the masses at select theatres of PVR Cinemas. These efforts led to an outpouring of responses from across the city and even beyond. These were collated and submitted to Satyendar Dubey, the Transport Minister of Delhi so that those areas could be lit up in the near future and Delhi made a lot safer for all. 

Roshan Dilli was supported by SafetiPin, a social enterprise, to identify the poorly lit spots in Delhi and align government stakeholders to ‘light up’ these spots by ensuring physical installation of street lights. 

At Uber, we believe that sexual harassment and violence against women in public spaces is a widespread problem, one that needs to be addressed with a multi-sectoral and collaborative approach. Technology has the power to transform how we address safety concerns and create these new alternatives, but at the same time, a lot needs to be done, specifically to raise the bar on safety standards. 

To know more about the Uber NDTV Roshan Dilli Campaign, visit its microsite here and watch its Episodes, Documentaries and short features here.