Support private buses to provide free travel to women, say owners

Thrissur: A section of private bus operators has asked the state govt to create an enabling environment for them to offer free travel for women in their buses also.Leaders of Kerala State Private Bus Operators’ Federation have presented three proposals to the govt to achieve this.

Firstly, the govt should pay Rs 55 per km for each private bus.

The govt can take the collections from the bus every day and the bus owners will meet the daily running cost including the staff salaries as well as the maintenance expenditure, federation state president K K Thomas and general secretary Hamza Erikkunnel said.They said on an average, private buses cover 250km a day and the amount to be paid to private operators will come to around Rs 13,750. The govt currently pays about Rs 14,440 per day to each KSRTC bus, they said.They further stated that while KSRTC takes the entire collection from the bus rides, in addition to the Rs 14,440, the private bus owners are ready to forego their collections.As per the second proposal, the private bus operators will issue ‘zero tickets’ to the women commuters by using the ticket vending machines used in KSRTC buses. The govt then should repay the fare of total women passengers to the private buses, as is being done in the case of private buses.

Providing diesel at half the price for private buses and waiving road tax for them are part of the third proposal that the federation leaders have mooted.According to them, the present free travel in KSRTC ordinary buses is beneficial only to 20% of the women. “But if our proposals are accepted, the scheme’s coverage will extend to 80% women,” Hamza said.