Soon, women can’t travel for free on city buses without a Delhi ID card. Here’s why

Transport Minister Pankaj Singh told The Indian Express that “the smart travel card will be only for mothers and sisters living in Delhi”.

The ‘pink ticket’ scheme was launched in 2019 and over 150 crore pink tickets have been sold so far. Under it, any woman can travel for free on buses run by DTC and cluster bus services.

In her maiden Budget speech in the Delhi Assembly, the CM called the scheme ‘pink corruption’ by the AAP government. “Women used to travel for Rs 100 but the bill was made for Rs 400… It was not their fault. They were travelling by taking pink tickets but the corruption in the name of ticketing was being done at a different level. To end this, we are going to replace the pink ticketing scheme with a smart bus card. Under this, our sisters will no longer need to buy tickets for each bus… They will be issued this smart travel card and can take any public bus to any location in Delhi.”

“An important objective of our government is to ensure benefits of government schemes reach those who are actually deserving of them. The AAP government ran Delhi’s schemes under vote bank politics; this not only violated the rights of residents of Delhi but also meant benefits of schemes were extended to ineligible people,” she said.

“We will now launch a vigorous verification campaign so benefits only reach genuine Delhiites and people who are not residents of Delhi, especially Rohingya and Bangladeshis, will not be able to avail of the schemes,” the CM said.

Taking a dig at the opposition MLAs in the House, Gupta added, “We are going to stop one thing which the previous government was doing — corruption in the name of subsidy and welfare schemes. We will do it in the transport sector too.”

Gupta also said, “(Arvind) Kejriwal ji came in front of the public after a long time and… alleged the BJP government stopped free bus rides for women. He must have seen a reel on his phone that a woman did not get a pink ticket and made it a national issue… We have allocated funds for all ongoing welfare and subsidy schemes as well as schemes that we have promised.”

In his first public appearance in Delhi after the AAP’s defeat in the Assembly elections last month, Kejriwal, addressing workers at its headquarters during an event to observe Shaheedi Diwas on Sunday, alleged that bus conductors were denying free pink tickets to women unless they downloaded a mobile app

The CM further said the BJP government will digitalise the ticketing system completely, citing the loss of Rs 14,000 crore suffered by the Delhi Transport Corporation (between 2015-16 and 2021-2022).

According to government data, the Delhi government has spent Rs 1,910.79 crore on pink passes subsidy from 2019 to 2024.

A senior official said the eligibility criteria will be decided once the plan is prepared. “Proof of residence like an Aadhaar Card, voter ID, or ration card will be sought to issue the smart bus pass.”

Officials also said, “The main aim is to provide these schemes to those who are deserving and are residents of Delhi. Currently, if you are a woman you can travel for free in buses. You can be from Noida, Ghaziabad… But if it is restricted to only Delhi, outsiders like women living in NCR cities won’t be able to avail of the benefits. This will also help the government save money.”

“Besides, the smart card system will also end corruption because we will get data on how many tickets have been sold… Currently, if a woman is travelling from one location to another, say from R K Puram to ITO, the conductor gives her multiple tickets instead of one. By issuing smart cards, this will curb such activity…,” said an official.