No sign of promised free bus passes to women in B’luru

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai during the state budget had announced a free bus pass facility for 30 lakh working women in the organised sector, allocating Rs 1,000 crore for it. He also instructed the Transport department to roll out the free bus pass scheme with effect from April 1. Three days into the month, there has been no sign of the scheme.

Along with this, a decision was taken to provide free bus pass facility to all school and college going girl students of the state at a cost of Rs 350 crore under 'Vidhya Vahini' Scheme. Eight lakh girl students were promised to be benefitted by this scheme.

They too await orders from the authorities regarding how to procure these free passes. A glimpse of what a scheme would achieve was seen when the BMTC had offered free bus rides to women on the occasion of Women’s Day and the initiative, as the BMTC had expected, turned out to be a huge success.

The corporation had said that 21.97 lakh women travelled on the day, nearly 2 lakh above the expectation of the bus corporation. States like Punjab and Tamil Nadu have introduced travel schemes for women using public transport. A study by the Tamil Nadu Planning Board has revealed that women, after the introduction of the scheme, were able to save between Rs 756 and Rs 1,012 in a month.

This will help women among many spheres – reducing dependability on family members for mobility requirements, increase their participation in the economy, help them earn a higher disposable income, and create more room for opportunities of learning and networking.

The Model Code of Conduct says that if an order has been issued by the state or the Union government with respect to any scheme but no work has begun till the MCC is in force, then no work shall be started in that respect. However, it also states that if work has actually started in the field, that can be continued. Women in the state will probably have to wait until the assembly elections to get over to avail their free bus pass facility