That Punjab government-led Women on Wheels (WoW) initiative is to be welcomed. As are all moves at the official level or otherwise that support women reclaiming the public space. Over the weekend, Lahore saw some 700 women take possession of the motorbikes they had secured at under the Chief Minister’s Strategic Reforms Unit (SRU) at the subsidised price of Rs 25,000. In real terms, this means 12 monthly instalments at just under Rs 2,000 each. Meaning this is not for the province’s most under-privileged women. Be that as it may, any measures mainstreaming the visual aesthetic of seeing women out and about on the streets can only be a good thing. Especially one that does not reduce women to sitting side-saddle behind men, shackled by outdated notions of Victorian propriety. WoW firmly places women in the driver’s seat. In addition, those who have never learned to ride a bike can sign up with the traffic police for a credited training programme. Though there were reports of women at Sunday’s rally not being able to start their bike’s engine let alone handling the machine properly. The WoW drive has been implemented across five districts in the Punjab; with plans to extend it to all 36. Yet what of other provinces? The question of women’s access to the public sphere is a matter of national urgency. Not to be held up as a point-scoring system of sorts to show-case which Chief Minister takes women the most seriously. To be clear, this is not direct criticism of Shehbaz Sharif, who has undoubtedly tried to do his best on this front. But it is a call to the Centre to take much needed responsibility and to streamline efforts to facilitate women as they continue to reclaim the public space. The incoming federal set-up must reverse this ‘devolution’ of women’s mobility to the provinces if, that it is, it wants gains to be more than marginal. It needs to prioritise a non-partisan national plan of action on this front; across all provinces. And it must be in it for the long haul. A good place to start would be initiating recruitment drives for women traffic police, bus and rickshaw drivers. Not to mention the police force as a whole. Admittedly, none of this can be achieved during a five-year tenure. Which why the new regime must sit down with political leaderships across the great divide in order to commit to such measures and to have successive governments agree to carry them forward. For it is not enough to rely on the kind words of lone foreign female tourists who laud Pakistan for its hospitality. The Centre has to start listening to Pakistani women. * Published in Daily Times, May 15th 2018.