Telangana’s Mahalakshmi free travel scheme for women brings fortunes even as teething problems remain

For instance, the corporation’s buses are no longer Valleti Anusha’s preferred mode of daily commute, though she was a loyal patron for eight years. If increased occupancy in these buses is a sign of the return of the corporation to its heyday, Anusha feels it has become difficult to find a bus, especially during peak hours.

“The frequency of buses has come down. After waiting for up to half an hour, the bus that arrives is full to the hilt. We see even women travelling on footboards these days. If all this is for free travel, I prefer comfortable travel to reach my office on time,” said Anusha, a schoolteacher living in Venkatagiri.

On December 15, 2023, TSRTC introduced zero-fare tickets to account for beneficiaries of the scheme. (Express photo by Rahul V Pisharody)

Incidentally, her sister Mounika pays three times the cost of her travel to college. “The quarterly student bus pass used to cost her Rs 1,200 but now as buses are off-limits, she is forced to take the metro to Secunderabad and then board a bus to her college in West Marredpally. The metro pass costs Rs 1,000 a month,” added Anusha.

62% of passengers now women

The official figures reveal a daily increase of over 9.2 lakh passengers since the scheme was introduced last month. About 62 per cent of the passengers now are women. The overall occupancy has increased by about 53 per cent. Near to full occupancy is recorded from almost all the 97 bus depots across the state. If such a spike in occupancy rates suggests increased access to public transport for women, another interesting dataset suggests that ridership on various temple routes has increased by 82 per cent. Officials say that a lot of excitement over the free bus travel scheme has resulted in leisure travel too.

The Mahalakshmi scheme, which was the Congress’s election promise, was implemented on December 9, 2023, after new members met at the Assembly for the first time and took their oath of office. One of the six big promises, the scheme has two more components—financial assistance of Rs 2,500 to eligible women and an LPG cylinder at Rs 500—which are being worked out.

On December 15, 2023, the corporation introduced zero-fare tickets to account for beneficiaries of the scheme. Of an average of 51 lakh daily passengers, over 27 lakh are issued zero-fare tickets every day. The corporation’s average daily revenue has risen to about Rs 18 to 19 crore, of which about Rs 10 crore comes from passengers who pay for their tickets. Earlier, the average daily revenue used to be around Rs 12 to 15 crore.

While the scheme is largely seen as a success, the fact is that zero-fare tickets are categorised as reimbursements receivable from the government and do not reflect in the corporation’s daily cash inflows. “If the government reimburses these zero-fare tickets in a time-bound manner, it will help the corporation. If not, it is going to be damaging. There are talks of the government wanting us to bear a certain percentage of the burden, which is going to be difficult for the TSRTC in its present financial condition,” said an official, on condition of anonymity.

The corporation estimates the cost of zero-fare tickets to be around Rs 250 crore every month. Experts feel lack of a revenue model and failure on part of the government to reimburse the TSRTC at the end of every month would lead to slow degeneration of the corporation and its fleet and cause confusion in its operations.

Agreeing with Anusha, a bus conductor on the Patancheru-CBS route, attributed the heavy rush in buses to “avoidable” travel by women. “A lot of them, we see, are travelling across the city and bus-hopping just because it is free. Many opt for buses for short distances and get them to stop at locations other than bus stops,” the conductor said.

Staff welfare also matters

According to him, conductors’ work and related pressure have increased manyfold because of non-cooperation from passengers. Of late, visuals of fights that break out between women passengers purportedly for seats have been widely shared on social media.

“Not everyone carries their original ID to prove their domicile as required. Many are even using forged and fake ID cards where sometimes photos don’t match, and sometimes addresses don’t. This way, it takes two to three minutes for us to verify and issue each zero-fare ticket. Also, only three zero-fare tickets can be issued by the ticket vending machine at once. So there are multiple factors that cause a delay in travel time,” he added.

While the amount of work has increased, their salaries have not risen since 2013, the corporation’s staff including drivers and conductors point out.

“The PRC (pay revision commission) recommendations of 2017 and 2021 are yet to be implemented. There is no word yet on the 50 per cent of the arrears of pay due from April 2013. We have not received a biannual DA (dearness allowance) since 2017. There has been no new recruitment or purchase of new buses for years. We hope the state government also takes employees’ welfare into consideration,” a bus conductor at the Central Bus Station said.

VC Sajjanar, vice-chairman and managing director of the corporation, agrees on the need for more buses. “The scheme has improved public transport for women and we will know more once it stabilises. Of course, there are issues and we need everyone’s cooperation. There is a scarcity of buses. But we are getting 1,050 new diesel buses and 1,000 new electric buses by June 2024,” he said.

Of the new electric buses, 500 will operate in Hyderabad. The corporation has a fleet of over 9,600 buses plying across the state. Of them, about 2,800 are operational in Hyderabad. States such as Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Punjab and Karnataka have previously implemented free bus travel for women.

Stating that mobility empowers people and opens a world of opportunities, Anant Maringanti, director of Hyderabad Urban Lab, a multi-disciplinary urban research centre, refused to call it a free travel scheme, as the government pays for the service.

However, asked if this scheme would lead to a direct increase in women’s participation in the labour force, Maringati finds it a tricky question to answer. For this, he added that the corporation would have to ensure women are moving specifically for employment by providing connections between their homes and places of work.

“That by itself is not enough. You need to have buses at the right time, connect the right places, make sure trips are safe, bus stops are accessible to women etc. Bus travel can only get them from one place to another and improving their lives is another question. Improving women’s ability to use public transportation, very specifically buses, is what this is about,” he added.