Bengaluru
The ‘Shakti’ scheme, which offers women free travel in non-premium services offered by the State–run Road Transport Corporations (RTCs), met the estimated target of beneficiaries on Monday, the first weekday the scheme was operational for. A total of 41.34 lakh women travelled free in RTC buses on the day. This cost the State exchequer ₹8.84 crore, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation said in a statement.
Earlier, the RTCs had estimated that around 41.81 lakh women (including 11.58 lakh pass holders) will benefit from the scheme. Meanwhile, according to KSRTC officials the scheme would cost the government at least ₹3,400 crore annually if the daily numbers stay in this form.
On June 11, the day the scheme was launched by the Congress-led State government, the RTCs incurred an expenditure of ₹1.40 crore in half a day. Speaking to The Hindu, Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy said, “This shows that the scheme is successful. However, we will look into the figures at least for one week and based on the numbers, if the women passengers are increasing to use RTC buses, we will start increasing the number of buses.”
RTC officials also say that it was early to conclude that the scheme was a runaway success. After the smart passes are issued, this number may come down. “Now most of the women passengers are using the free bus scheme out of curiosity. Based on their traveling experience, they may opt or may not for the smart pass to avail free bus ride scheme,” the official added.
Regarding buses being more crowded after the scheme was launched, Mr. Reddy said that the fleet size will be increased soon and added: “The four corporations (the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, the BMTC, the NWKRTC, and the KKRTC) have planned to procure 1,894 new buses this year. Apart from this, since many are complaining about gaps in rural service, we will improve the bus services to rural areas so that the women passengers will benefit from the scheme.”
