Highlights
- Bangalore is India's technology hub with more than 8 million inhabitants.
- The ACRA foundation is helping 13,000 rickshaw drivers become more independent.
- The European Union strongly wanted the project to also focus on reducing environmental and noise pollution levels.
Bangalore is considered the Silicon Valley of India, where all the biggest Indian and international hi-tech companies are based.
Alongside the great technological development, however, we also find very high levels of poverty, with a large part of the population living in slums.
Most of the city's eight million inhabitants use rickshaws as a means of transport within the city. The vehicles, which use petrol to run, are highly polluting both from an environmental and an acoustic point of view.
It's within this context that the ACRA Foundation's project operates. This project is aimed at helping drivers to become owners of their vehicle by giving them privileged access to credit.
However, the project is not only aimed at development, but also at sustainability. The rickshaws that are purchased through this project are all electric. This move would thus make it possible to reduce the strong environmental and noise pollution that affects this Indian city.
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