NEW DELHI: A group of 500 women from the scheduled castes are looking forward to making a clean break from their occupation as manual scavengers and driving into their new profession as cabbies, thanks to Modi Sarkar which is providing them all the requisite training including some nifty self-defence techniques.Their instructor, Mamtha Sangte from Ujjain, was among the fortunate few who managed to break the cycle of caste and poverty on her own and give up manual scavenging to train in martial arts. The 34-year-old black belt in taekwondo is set to train this first batch of Dalit women for a month, after which they will be ready to take on their role of driving commercial taxi cabs in Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai. These women have already completed their training in driving, government officials said. They said the social justice ministry has tied up with cab service providers Ola Uber and Meru, along with airport taxis, to train 10,000 such Dalit women manual scavengers by 2019.The training is being provided under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan , or national cleanliness mission, which aims to make the country open-defecation free by 2019. The Prime Minister’s Office has mandated that a monthly report of progress under the mission be sent to it every month, including a report by the National Safai Karamcharis Finance & Development Corporation (NSKFDC), which is tasked with rehabilitation of manual scavengers across the country. Till March, 12,226 manual scavengers were identified in 12 states across the country. They said Rs 67.02 lakh has been released for training and rehabilitation of 2,390 manual scavengers and their dependants to start with, beginning this month.To motivate the women, Social Justice Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot and secretary Anita Agnihotri have been meeting them in the parks where the self-defence camps are being held. Sanu, a 21-year old mother of two from Madangir in south Delhi, said she was thrilled when she got her driving licence last week.“My family laughed at us when I told them I am going to be a driver. They told me steering wheel was not a toy. I was also scared. But after three months of driving, I may not be comfortable holding a pen, but I know my clutch, gears and brake really well,” she said.The women are also being trained in soft skills such as how to behave with the customers and to make them feel comfortable, said M Nagraj, head of NSKFDC, which is implementing the programme. Cab service companies including Meru and Uber have shown much interest in recruiting these women for their new fleet of cars, officials said, and those who have completed their training will be eligible for commercial driving in the next few months.Besides, talks to get these women to drive some of the 5,100 e-rickshaws to be launched in Delhi, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida and Faridabad are almost finalised. Several beneficiaries of the programme that ET spoke with are school dropouts and hail from families where both men and women have been involved in manual scavenging.“Many of them just say it is regular labour work, but some still help their parents with it. I have done it all through my childhood with my mother and I know how disrespectful society is towards us,” said Mamta.Beauty Kumary, 19, the eldest among six siblings, said her parents are still part of work related to cleaning of drainage pipes.“Even the Delhi government is coming up with women’s taxis. I am hoping that I get to drive women who have to work on late-night shifts. I am not afraid of anyone now,” she said. The programme started with identification of women belonging to families involved in manual scavenging in Delhi and then camps were set up in Rohini, Dwarka and Mongolpuri, closer to their homes, officials said. Seventy such camps are being planned in other cities as well this year, they said.