India's biggest telecom operator, Vodafone Idea, has launched a mobile-based safety feature for women in India. The service called Vodafone Sakhi includes a host of features that are aimed at providing safety measures to women using their mobile phones. This includes emergency alerts, emergency balance, and private number recharge among other things.

"India has over a billion mobile connections and almost half of our population is women. Yet, less than 18% of mobile subscribers are women. Further, most women have access to only feature-phones and basic mobile phones...With Vodafone Sakhi, we are taking forward our long-term commitment of driving inclusion and addressing real societal problems," Avneesh Khosla, Associate Director - Consumer Business, Vodafone Idea said in a statement.

The newly launched service is available to all women using the company's pre-paid service across the country and it will work across smartphones and feature-phones even when they run out of balance or are in an area that doesn't have mobile internet connectivity.

As mentioned before, Vodafone Sakhi works by providing its users three basic services. While the emergency alerts feature allows women to send location alerts to 10 pre-registered contacts in case of an unwanted event, the emergency balance feature offers 10 free minutes to call during an emergency even with zero talk time balance. On the other hand, the private recharge feature provides a dummy 10-digit number to ensure privacy of mobile number during recharge at the company's retail outlets.

Vodafone's women users can activate this service free of cost by dialing its toll free number. During activation, users will be asked to register 10 emergency contact numbers. These registered contacts will receive alerts from the user in case of an eventuality.

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"Women safety is a burning issue in our country. We have all seen cases of women holding back in their daily life on opportunities because of safety concerns. Addressing this critical issue, Vodafone Sakhi is a small step to give women the confidence to step out fearlessly and live their dreams with a trusted solution at hand," said Siddharth Banerjee, EVP - Marketing, Vodafone Idea Limited.