Chennai: The scheme providing free rides for women in ordinary government city buses all over the State has earned the beneficiaries dignity at home as they do not depend on other members for the ticket cost, given them more freedom of movement and encouraged them to pursue education as they liked.
These were among the findings of a study on the scheme, launched on May 8, 2021, the day after the present DMK government, headed by M K Stalin, assumed office. Of the five files signed by Stalin on the first day in office, one was on free bus rides for women, which was implemented immediately with stickers put up on buses overnight to announce that travel was free for women.
Enforced amidst overwhelming public support, high expectations and even criticism from some quarters, the scheme had seen women making 311.61 crore free journeys that would have otherwise cost them a total of Rs 4,985 crore and saving an average of Rs 888 a month with the actual amounts ranging from 756 to Rs 1,1012.
In Chennai, women were found to undertake an average of 50 journeys a month, saving Rs 858, when the three routes were chosen for the survey – one between Koyambedu and Thiruvotiyur, two between Tambaram and Chengalpattu and three between Broadway and Kanaginagar.
Apart from students and women who aspired to study, most of the beneficiaries were housemaids earning Rs 1000 and 2000 working in a house, textile shop saleswomen, employees of small companies, construction workers, conservancy staff, women taking sick people to hospitals and mothers accompanying children to school.
The study undertaken by State Planning Commission member M Vijayabaskar in Chennai and other places like Madurai, Tiruppur and Nagapattinam revealed that apart from saving money, the women were able to provide things for the family members because of the free bus ride enhancing their scope for progress.
More rural women have availed of the facility than urban women and of the free travelers 39 per cent belonged to the Scheduled Castes, 21 to Most Backward Classes, 18 per cent to Backward Classes. More than 50 percent of the women were aged above 40 years.
It was also revealed in the survey that of the total 9,620 city buses that plied on the roads, 74.46 percent of them were ordinary white board buses that offered the free travel of women and transgendered persons. Though the facility was extended to transgendered persons a few days after women were allowed to travel free, 18.04 lakh of them have travelled so far.
The introduction of the scheme had taken the percentage of women bus travelers to 66.03 percent as those working in the agricultural sector, industrial sector and commercial sector have availed of it. To document the benefits of the scheme, the government introduced a system to issue a zero value ticket to account for the free journey.
