Zero-fare is women’s ticket to freedom, work, and study

Twenty-six-year-old Deepali Tonk wanted to study in her dream college, Miranda House, but she lived in Delhi’s Kamgar Basti, Sunder Nagri, around 17 kms away. She was forced to choose a college nearer her home. “This was before the free travel for women. When the pink ticket (zero-fare ticket) started in 2019, I was studying social work and the savings helped me buy a study table and a chair,” said Tonk, now a social activist who lives in DLF but commutes across the city on work. 

The pink ticket meant a free bus ride for women in Delhi’s public buses — now extended to transgenders. Its purpose was to “empower women and bridge the gender gap in the society”. The scheme, albeit with teething problems, has increased the number of women commuters and the way they commute. Importantly, it has helped them save transport costs. For many like Tonk, it has meant freedom to travel. Tonk recalls how women in her basti availed the pink ticket to visit various sites in Delhi, something they had not done before. 

The pink ticket, also called zero-fare or fare-free rides, has been a game changer for women in many ways. More meaningful than hand-outs like the Ladki Bahin scheme in Maharashtra,^[1] or similar handouts, it has enabled women to commute within their cities or states without having to worry its impact on their household budgets. This, in turn, has meant more freedom, greater work opportunities, and leisure and socialisation occasions that many, especially the lower class or poorer women, had only imagined.  

“Poverty is one of the biggest challenges to accessing public transport,” states a report by Safetipin, Women and Mobility. “Women and girls are more likely to be impacted by poverty. Women are known to forego an opportunity to work outside their neighbourhoods if they fear transport fares are expensive.”^[2] But it is not only work; economically underprivileged women have used the pink ticket to do care work or simply experience freedom, as reactions suggest.

The zero-ticket bus travel was introduced as an election gimmick, with political parties dangling the proverbial carrot for voters. Regardless, the outcome has been mostly positive for women, sparking off changes well beyond the ken of the scheme. While some studies have been undertaken which show this, depth research at the intersection of gender studies and economics is awaited. However, anecdotal experiences show that the scheme, where introduced, has been welcomed and demands have begun in other states like Maharashtra to adopt it too.

It saves women money
This June marked a year since Shakti, Karnataka’s free bus scheme for women, started. Nearly 18 lakh women had travelled free between June 2023 and March 2024.^[3] Yashoda P, a community leader of Domestic Workers Rights Union in Bengaluru, who travels from her home in Koramangala to her work at JP Nagar, used autorickshaws. She began taking the bus after the scheme was introduced. “Now, I save almost Rs2,000 to Rs 3,000 a month. Even other domestic helps do. We now spend more on vegetables, children’s education,” says Yashoda.

The report, Fair Fares: Towards Gender-Inclusive Public Transport, by Citizen consumer and civic Action Group (CAG) in Tamil Nadu notes: Two-thirds of the women estimated that they saved over Rs 400 a month, 20 percent said that they saved between Rs 601 and Rs 800, 18 percent said that they saved Rs 801-Rs 1,000 a month. These findings corroborate the State Planning Commission which found an average saving of Rs 800 per month.^[4]

For many poor families, the savings leave them with a bit more for essentials. And increased mobility means more work opportunities for women – and more household income. “Subsidised or free transport changes the attitude of family members. It helps in education too; the enrolment and retention rate in colleges also increases,” says well-known feminist economist Dr Vibhuti Patel.

More difficult to measure is the increased confidence that many women have anecdotally told journalists and researchers about. Says Kalpana Viswanath, co-founder of Safetipin, “Whatever data is coming from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and other places, it seems to have given women independence. Women can travel on their own or with women relatives. It certainly seems to have helped in women’s independence.” Adds Sanskriti Menon, Senior Programme Director, Centre for Environment Education, “The zero-fare ticket turned out to be women’s ticket to freedom, to explore the city and socialise. The sense of freedom, the ability to go to places, and the social connection with family and friends, are very important for women’s well-being.” 

Riding high on numbers
In nearly every case, there has been a rise in ridership of women and tells its own story. In Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses, pink tickets represented 25 percent of total sales in 2020-21 which surged to 46 percent of all tickets sold in 2023-24.^[5] After the Congress came to power in December 2023 in Telangana, it started Mahalakshmi, a free bus scheme for women and transgenders. Initially, 14 lakh women used the facility daily; by April 2024, it was 29.7 lakh women a day.^[6]

In Punjab, before the scheme was launched, about 61 lakh daily bus users were recorded in April 2021 which increased two-fold to 1.12 crore by November 2022.^[7] Many can be inferred to be women. In TN, women’s ridership has gone up by 75 percent from 16 to 28 lakh a day.^[8] The key point is that most of these states or cities did not keep count of women commuters before the scheme started. 

Research by Greenpeace India on the impact of zero-ticket shows, according to Avinash Chanchal, Campaign Manager at the organisation, “The scheme helps women to not only get more opportunities in terms of livelihood, work, and scope of travel but also to spend time on their leisure too.” Interviews have shown that women who would have otherwise walked 4-5 kilometres used the time saved to also take up another job. 

Barbs come with the bus
It has not been one cool ride for women though. The critiques of the scheme on financial and logistical grounds apart, women commuters have been shamed by male commuters and bus conductors too.^[9] 

The rude behaviour, taunts and humiliating comments have been a dampener for many women. “Even the bus frequency has reduced. Buses are overcrowded and women face lewd behaviour every day. My suggestion is to have separate buses for men and women. And instead of making bus travel free for all women, only those who earn less than Rs 20,000 a month should be given the benefit,” says Yashoda from Bengaluru. 

The welfare scheme has been looked upon as a ‘freebie’ in the popular and media narratives. Barbs-harassment is the price women have been paying. Comments such as ‘Pinky, take your ticket’ and ‘freeloader’ have become common. Halt for women bus users in Delhi, a report by Greenpeace India, studied this phenomenon and brought out the intensity of discrimination women commuters faced; respondents said that buses do not halt at bus stops where women are waiting. Clearly, the need is for gender sensitisation. 

Despite this, women use the schemes in large numbers because the benefits outweigh the barbs. In the CAG study in Tamil Nadu, one in every four women told interviewers that it gave them the freedom to indulge in leisure activities such as visiting temples, loitering on the beach or in a park.^[10]

Women do not have to ask for money to travel, says Dr Ritu Dewan, Vice President of the Indian Society of Labour Economics, pointing to the financial autonomy the fare-free bus service has brought. “It’s such a basic thing but it permeates at all levels, at least till the lower-middle class.” Citing that the pandemic impacted the school-going girl students, she says that many girls in secondary school have been able to commute to school because of the scheme.  

However, researchers and activists caution against loading all gender issues onto this scheme. Viswanath says, “This is not a silver bullet. It is certainly an important step but it doesn’t address many other issues such as safety, accessibility, improving bus routes and buses, upgrading the transport system entirely, and last-mile connectivity.” 

Are funds really a problem?
The Delhi government has spent nearly Rs 1,000 crore on the pink ticket scheme in the past three years, said officials.^[11] This March, the finance minister allocated Rs 340 crore in the annual budget.^[12] A year on, Shakti cost the Karnataka government more than Rs 5,000 crore, according to chief minister Siddaramaiah.^[13]

In every case, even those who agree in principle to the welfare scheme raise questions about its feasibility from the financial perspective. Critics pointed out last year that in 20 years between 2000-01 and 2020-21, the Karnataka government did not pay its four road transport corporations the Rs 4,265 crore that it owed them over various concessions to commuters.^[14] Most state-run public transport companies are running into losses already which, they say, will be exacerbated by the zero-ticket scheme; besides, the increased demand could affect punctuality too.

In Andhra Pradesh, for example, the state-run transport corporation (APSRTC) was already grappling^[15] with Rs 3,275 crore loss as of 2023. It operates^[16] 10,904 buses and roughly 15 of 38 lakh commuters daily are women. The free bus rides were estimated to cost the state Rs 6 crore per day, potentially reducing the APSRTC’s income by 40 percent. However, for perspective, the previous government had spent about Rs 4.25 lakh crore on Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and non-DBT schemes. Maharashtra government’s Ladki Bahin Yojana, giving handout of Rs 1,500 to poor women, has been budgeted for Rs 46,000 crore this financial year alone.

Chanchal of Greenpeace suggests there should be centralised funding from the Government of India on a national programme on fare-free public transport for women. However, economists like Dr Dewan assert that “There is no financial crunch.” Citing many freebies such as non-performing assets (NPAs) and companies sold at low cost, she says, “I work in finance, and there’s absolutely no issue of finance crunch. Zero-ticket is not a freebie, it’s a rights-based thing.”

In an environment in which public transport is funded by governments or supported financially by commercial interests through advertisements, and most transport corporations have running deficits,^[17] the zero-ticket or fare-free schemes may be seen as an additional burden. However, when compared to other spends that governments make, this is not a make-or-break element in budgets.

Transport is a public good, asserts Dr Dewan. “So, we should not look at profit. This is like a public sector undertaking. You can’t judge PSUs and private companies with the same yardstick.”

Going forward
The popularity and increased usage by women so far make the zero-ticket or fare-free bus travel scalable to other cities and states – sooner than later. Can it be extended to all public transport is a question that even researchers hesitate to answer in the affirmative at this point.

The scheme, however, should be a starting point to gender mainstream the entire bus network. It is not enough to make bus rides free for women; the network itself should be safe for all, especially for women, adequate facilities such as restrooms should be provided, bus stops should be lit well, bus frequency can be improved and displayed at bus stops, and so on. Rather than seen in a silo, the scheme can be a part of making bus commutes safe and comfortable for women. 

Perhaps, all-women buses are an idea too. “I am all for women-only buses. Employing women drivers and conductors would make passengers feel safe and comfortable,” says Dewan.

Women’s participation in the overall transport planning is important but still a long way off. What we know so far about the zero-ticket bus travel scheme is that it brings a host of benefits to women at some cost to the state. That would be the purpose of a public transport network, anyway. 

Shobha Surin, currently based in Bhubaneswar, is a journalist with 20 years of experience in newsrooms in Mumbai. An Associate Editor at Question of Cities, she is concerned about climate change and is learning about sustainable development.

Cover photo: Juan Antonio Segal/Wikimedia Commons