Bengaluru : Karnataka Government’s Shakti scheme for women, which offers free travel on state-run buses, has pushed up public transport patronage. The average number of people travelling by state buses including BMTC daily has touched 1.03 crore. A 23 percent jump according to the sources. Transport minister Ramalinga Reddy told media that “ This is a significant increase. More people have started travelling by state-run buses in the last two week”. In fact, the average number of people travelling by buses of all four corporations—KSRTC, BMTC, NEKRTC AND NWKRTC—was 84 lakhs per day before the shakti scheme was rolled out . He also said that the there is need to increase the fleet size of all the RTCs by at least 10,000 buses to meet the increasing patronage. According to Sources , In the last two weeks, more than 7.6 crore women passengers have travelled in state buses and the total value of tickets expended on them added to around Rs 180 crore. The daily women ridership count even crossed the 60 lakh mark from the previous average of 42 lakh.
Anbukumar , Managing Director of Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) told media ,” once the scheme was launched, there was an overwhelming repose from the women passengers, Due to rise in demand, occupancy has increased from 70 to 90 percent in ordinary services, Interestingly , on weekends and holidays, the number of people travelling in our buses jumped significantly, The increased ridership will help the corporations optimally utilise their fleet and improve revenue, Depending on demand, we are running more buses on certain routes,” he added.
The free bus-travel scheme may have got an overwhelming response from women, but not all are enthused. The scheme has thrown up some new challenges for commuters, the authorities concerned as well as other stakeholders in the mobility sector as there have been multiple instances of creq facing the ire of passengers. Auto drivers in the city say the free facility has resulted in revenue loss for them , They said,” it has become very difficult to earn even Rs 400 per day. We are hardly getting any passengers now. Ata time when we are facing competition from bike-taxis, this free bus travel has come as another blow”.
Meantime Social media is inundated with videos of passengers, especially women, either jesting for space, or fiercely elbowing each others. So much so that commuters are now not only slamming the RTCs for not operating more buses, but also stomping the streets demanding an increase in fleet sizes. According to sources now, KSRTC management has directed its officials to identify routes that have high demand and operate more buses.
