An Indian travel company and an LGBT rights organisation have come together to launch a new taxi service despite anti-homosexual laws

The initiative by Wings Travels and Humsafar Trust will have taxis chauffeured by LGBT community members.

On Wednesday, five volunteers from The Humsafar Trust, an LGBT rights organisation, signed up to drive the taxis.

The five LGBT drivers will undergo a year’s training which includes attaining All India Driver’s Licences and training in customer etiquette. They will begin taking passengers next year in Mumbai.

Speaking to The Hindi newspaper, Wings Travel director Arun Kharat said: “We want them to be eventual entrepreneurs and own these vehicles.

“We want to ensure that the LGBT community in India enjoys the same rights and livelihood opportunities in India as their counterparts in the West,” he added.

Mr Kharat said Wings Travels currently operates approximately 5,500 radio taxis in nine cities including Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, and Chandigarh.

“While the first five are trained, we will continue enrolment from the LGBT community up to 1,500 people across all nine cities,” he said.

According to Pallav Patankar, program director for the Humsafar Trust, the project started after several businesses offered to employ LGBT citizens.

“Several business houses came forward to offer employment to the transgender and sexual minority community,” Pantakar told The Hindu.

“In the current batch [of drivers], we have two members of the hijra community, but we hope that more members of the hijra and transgender community will come forward.”

In 2013, the Supreme Court of India re-criminalised homosexuality after previously throwing out an anti-homosexuality law in 2009. There have been several attempts to change the law, but so far these have been unsuccessful.

Recently a prominent former judge hit out at the anti-homosexual legislation calling it a “mistake”.