New Delhi: Narendra Modi did over 70 ‘interviews’ with TV and news media in the run-up to the general elections.
His controversial takes were many, but one that was an outlier even in the long list, was opposing the free bus rides for women. “बस फ्री कर दी, मेट्रो खाली कर दी…मुझे ये नहीं करना है [The opposition] has made bus ride [for women] free, but I won’t do this].” Modi opposed the promise of women being allowed to travel free in state buses, an idea put out first in Karnataka after the Congress defeated the BJP in the 2023 assembly elections.
But the new Andhra Pradesh government has promised to do just that. There are news reports of APSRTC making plans to implement the poll promise. The momentum generated by the Karnataka Congress guarantee and Telangana too, has ensured that the new TDP-JSP-BJP government has had to promise to give free bus travel for women in Road Transport Corporation or RTC buses, apart from three free cooking gas cylinders to every household per year.
Why did Modi say he does not want women to get free bus rides?
Modi, in opposing free bus rides as they hurt metros, in the interview with three employees of India Today on May 16, echoed what construction company Larsen & Toubro’s (L&T’s) chief financial officer R. Shankar Raman said when he announced planning to sell its stake in Hyderabad Metro after its ridership declined due to Telangana government’s free bus ride scheme for women. L&T owns 90% of the metro project, just 10% is with the state government.
The daily passenger count of the metro declined from its peak of 550,000 in November 2023 to 480,000 in April 2024, reported Moneycontrol. Unfazed, in May, Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy said his government will continue with the Congress guarantee of free bus rides to women and transgender persons and will explore more options for the benefit of the state.
Massive benefits to women’s mobility increasing
There is extensive evidence to support the view that there are longterm benefits of increased mobility for women. Often, the money to be shelled out for tickets is a constraint, which free bus rides take away.
A detailed report by a national daily on the bus rides in May, headlined, ‘Women are travelling like they are possessed… Where are they going?: Bus journeys through poll-bound Karnataka’, where reporters travelled 528 km in buses of Karnataka’s road transport corporations – from Belagavi in the north to Hubballi, winding their way down to Haveri, Davanagere and, finally, Bengaluru on voting day, found it to have a salutary impact on gender parity, of “women claiming the public space, and asking for more”.
