‘One Family, One Entrepreneur’ scheme empowers 1,000 women to take the driver’s seat in A.P.

With an electric scooter, a smartphone, and an unshakable spirit, women across Andhra Pradesh are steering their families into a brighter future. A quiet revolution is unfolding on the streets of cities like Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, and Nellore, where women from Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have become micro-entrepreneurs, ferrying passengers through Rapido and bringing home a steady income.

This is in tune with Andhra Pradesh government’s mission of ‘One Family, One Entrepreneur’ scheme, which was launched by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on March 8.

As part of the initiative, the Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA) joined hands with ride-sharing platform Rapido to provide electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers to SHG women and their families.

During the pilot phase, the government facilitated loans for over 1,000 beneficiaries across nice urban centres across the State, with 400 each in Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, 50 in Nellore and Guntur, and 25 each in Kurnool, Tirupati, Kakinada, and Rajamahendravaram. Of these, about 760 were electric two-wheelers and 240 were electric three-wheelers.

Loans are disbursed in the name of SHG women, but if a woman does not hold a driving licence, a family member with a licence is allowed to operate the vehicle on her behalf.

To make the process simple, the MEPMA prepared the necessary project reports and helped the women secure loans from nationalised banks under the Self-Employment Programme (SEP) scheme.

The partnership with Rapido brought additional support. The new entrants enjoyed a waiver on platform onboarding fees for three to four months and monthly EMI assistance of ₹1,000 for the first year, for both two-wheelers and three-wheelers.

This ensured that women and their families could start earning from day one, without the initial burden of high repayments.

So far, 1,003 women and their families have benefited from it and have availed of loans to buy two or three-wheelers, with 688 registrations noted on Rapido, said Minister for HRD and IT Nara Lokesh, on Monday.

“Women empowerment is a key focus area of the TDP government. I am happy that we could create this partnership with Rapido and empower over 1,000 women. This is just a start and we will be doing much more,” he said.

Women receive bank loans for vehicles, subsidies ranging from ₹12,300 for scooters to ₹36,000 for autorickshaws, and support from Rapido in the form of waived onboarding fees and EMI assistance in the initial months.

With electric vehicles cutting down fuel and maintenance costs, women entrepreneurs are managing to save between ₹13,000 and ₹16,000 a month, offering their families much-needed stability, said Mr. Lokesh.

The Andhra Pradesh government now plans to scale up the initiative to reach 4,800 women by next year. Already, more than 45,000 rides have been completed by the new fleet of women drivers, and they have collectively been able to earn up to ₹35 Lakh within three months—May, June & July.