No free ride for police in state buses: RTI

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Police department personnel "cannot travel free" in state-owned transport corporations buses unless they have a ‘warrant permission’ when they happen to be taking accused persons to various courts.

This has been stated in a reply by the public information officer at the State DGP office in Chennai to a RTI query from G K Subramaniam, of Kodumudi in Erode district.

Police personnel have no such blanket nod for travelling free in state-owned transport buses and no such order has been issued by the state transport undertakings, said the reply.

This would also apply to policemen commuting between their homes and respective offices and back home after finishing their duty for the day, the RTI reply said. Even during off-duty hours, when police personnel go on personal work, there is no provision for free travel in state-owned transport buses, both metropolitan and mofussil areas, the RTI query reply clarifies.

However, as a matter of courtesy and in the interests of inter-departmental functional cordiality, police personnel in uniform while travelling by state-owned buses are usually not pressed by the conductors to buy tickets as the cops provide security to the TNSTC buses in various other ways, particularly when there is road blockade or any other unexpected untoward incident.