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Free bus rides for Delhi women from mid-August

New Delhi | BySweta Goswami
Jul 27, 2019 09:23 PM IST

The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) in its proposal — that will be tabled before the cabinet soon — has conveyed to the government that it will issue single journey tickets to women who want to avail the free bus ride offer.

Women in the national capital will be able to travel in city’s buses for free from mid-August, with Delhi’s transport utility finalising its proposal for the scheme.

The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) in its proposal — that will be tabled before the cabinet soon — has conveyed to the government that it will issue single journey tickets to women who want to avail the free bus ride offer.

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“We are aiming to make all our 5,500 buses free for women by mid-August. A cabinet note in this matter is ready and the document will be sent to the finance and law departments on Monday for their comments. After this, we hope the matter will be put up before the cabinet, chaired by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for his approval,” said Delhi transport minister Kailash Gahlot.

The minister added that the tickets that will be issued to the female passengers will be paper-based and pink in colour. The pink tickets will have the date mentioned on them, which will help the DTC keep a count of the women passengers who avail the service on a daily basis.

Delhi at present has a total of 5,459 buses, including DTC and cluster. Once implemented, women will get to travel for free in both types of buses. Women travelling on buses that have routes from Delhi to NCR cities like Noida, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Faridabad, will also not have to pay any fare for their journey.

On June 3, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had first announced that his government is working on a proposal to offer free rides to women in Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses, cluster buses and the Delhi Metro. While the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) conveyed to the government that rolling the free ride scheme in the Metro would take at least eight months, the DTC said it was considering h two alternatives.

“One option was to make travel free for women in buses by issuing a monthly or annual pass to them. The second was to issue on-spot single journey tickets to them. After several meetings with the government, the DTC decided to go ahead with the second option,” said a DTC official.

In a report submitted to government last month, the DTC had said it would need at least 200 crore to roll out the plan for a period of six months after which it claimed more funds will be required.

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