Free DTC bus rides for women: From pink passes to bus marshals, here's how it will work

Women in Delhi will be able to travel on DTC and its cluster buses for free from Tuesday, which is also the occasion of Bhai Dooj. The decision was approved by the transport minister, following which a notification to roll out the initiative was issued at 10pm on Monday.

From pink passes, bus marshals and additional buses, here's how the Delhi government is implementing the scheme.

How does this work?

Upon boarding the bus, women travellers will be given a pink pass. Delhi government will reimburse Rs 10 to DTC for every pink pass issued.

Around 30 lakh commuters use DTC buses every day and around 12 lakh people use cluster buses. Around a third of these passengers are women, as mentioned in a report in Times of India.

As many as 1.5 crore pink passes have been printed so far. These passes also have a message on women empowerment on them. As many as 5,000 additional buses will also ply to accommodate the passengers, as mentioned in the daily.

Bus marshals

Around 13,000 marshals, as well as 6,000 civil defence personnel, Home Guards and ex-servicemen have been deployed to ensure the safety of women. A training session was organised at Thyagraj Stadium, where Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had asked the marshals to ensure that women feel the safety of their homes in the government buses.

"The two crore people of Delhi are like my family and I am like the elder son of this family. It has been a matter of concern for me that the women of my family do not feel safe in the city," said Kejriwal at the training session. He also said that Delhi is the only city in the world to have such a huge number of bus marshals deployed on a single day.

The Chief Minister had also announced free rides on the Delhi Metro also along with DTC. However, it is unclear when that scheme will see the light of the day. A budget of Rs 250 crore was announced for the free DTC bus rides, which included Rs 90 crore for the DTC buses, Rs 50 crore for the cluster buses and Rs 150 crore for Delhi Metro.

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