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Kejriwal takes a bus ride, takes feedback from passengers
New Delhi:
New Delhi:
A day after the Delhi government made bus rides free for women in the city, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal hopped into Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and cluster buses to take feedback from passengers.
The chief minister on Wednesday morning waited at different bus stops with other passengers, starting from ITO, and boarded three buses that took him to Nirman Vihar, Jagatpuri and Azad Nagar. After his bus journey, Kejriwal said women in the city are now being treated as “VIPs” with the Delhi government’s free bus ride scheme.
“Until now, only MPs and MLAs would get free transport perks. Now all women will get free transport facilities. I boarded a few buses to get direct feedback from women. In addition to students, working women, women going for shopping, I met a few who have to visit the doctor regularly. They are all very happy,” Kejriwal said in a Tweet.
According to data provided by the Delhi government, the 3,750 buses of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) ticketed a total of 13.65 lakh passengers on the first full day (5am to 11 pm) of the scheme (Tuesday). Out of this, nearly 35% were women as 13.65 lakh were issued the pink single-journey tickets.
But only 19,827 (9.63%) women out of a total of 1.86 lakh ticketed passengers were issued the pink tickets in the 1,808 cluster (orange) buses on Tuesday.
Asked about the low female ridership in their buses, the Delhi Integrated Multi-modal Transit System (DIMTS) said their conductors were unaware pink tickets needed to be given to female passengers on day one of the scheme.
“Bus rides in Delhi have always been free for women on the day of Bhai Dooj. In the past, both DTC and cluster buses never used to issue any single-journey pink tickets for the free ride to women on Bhai Dooj. So, some conductors in our buses had the misconception that the pink tickets had to be issued only from day two of the scheme (Wednesday),” a senior DIMTS official said.
On day two of the initiative (Wednesday), a total of 11.07 lakh passengers were issued tickets in all DTC and cluster buses combined till 4 pm. Out of this, 3.35 lakh (30.3%) availed of the free ride service. If seen separately, on Tuesday, the cluster bus service still had lower female ridership (20% of its ticketed passengers) compared to DTC, which had 33% women riders.
A senior transport official said the female ridership in cluster buses was likely to be lower because of the routes of the bus service. “Most cluster buses have routes in rural areas. The low female ridership could signify women in rural areas do not generally take buses or use much of public transport,” the official said.
Asked about the opposition’s criticism that the Delhi government was offering “freebies” ahead of the assembly elections, Kejriwal said “good work” should be supported by everybody.
“If this is an election stunt, instead of opposing it, why don’t they take such steps where they have elections coming up. Let them do it Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Goa where they are in power before criticising us,” he said.
On the free travel scheme being extended to Delhi Metro, he said the government was working on that. “It is taking slightly longer because we have to do it together with the Centre. Even that scheme will start soon,” he said.
Kejriwal said free bus service will be extended to senior citizens and students as well. “The process to extend this scheme to senior citizens and students is longer and more complicated as identification of the beneficiaries will be a challenge. But we will do that too,” he said.
“I am happy that 150 buses have been added in the past two months itself and 3,000 more buses will be delivered over the course of the next six months,” Kejriwal said.
