The DMK government of Tamil Nadu after it was sworn into office announced free bus rides for all women in the state. Hailed as a novel initiative, it gained traction across the country as a project which helps women assess to free rides in public transport systems leading them to be more independent.
Chennai, Oct 7 (BPNS)
The DMK government of Tamil Nadu after it was sworn into office announced free bus rides for all women in the state. Hailed as a novel initiative, it gained traction across the country as a project which helps women assess to free rides in public transport systems leading them to be more independent.
In fact, the scheme was well accepted during the initial days and the percentage of women riding buses touched an all-time high and around 61% of the total passengers in Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) buses were women. The DMK government floated this as one of its major achievements and showcased that the party always stood for women.
However, the honeymoon was short-lived with several cases of bus drivers and conductors belittling the women traveling buses and even gesturing them that they were at the benevolence of the staff.
R. Sundari, a domestic help in Tiruchi while speaking to BPNS said, “Initially we thought it was good as we good juggle work and work at two places or three places as we don’t have to bother about the travel. Tickets were free. After some days, the bus conductors started abusing us and used choicest of expletives on us and men also used to laugh at this. Anyone who has a little self-respect would stop taking free rides. Initially, I did not want to reject it as it was saving me good money but later I decided not to travel for free and forcibly asked the conductor to accept money.”
She said that the bus conductor did not accept the fare but she insisted that she be alighted from the bus if they were not accepting the money.
Recently the issue gained momentum after the Tamil Nadu minister for higher education, K. Ponmudi in a public function made remarks in a belittling way reminding women members in the audience about the free bus scheme introduced by the Stalin government.
He asked the women members of the audience, “ How are you going in bus today? If you want to go from here to Koyambedu (a place in Chennai) or anywhere you are going in ‘OC’. “ OC is a term used in Tamil for free.
This infuriated several people and a video of an elderly woman arguing with a conductor that she won’t travel unless he takes the ticket went viral. The woman asked the conductor, “The Minister is talking like that!!? We going in ‘OC’? We don’t want to go in ‘OC’!. We will travel by paying the money. Prices of everything have raised and five rupees is not a big deal. Take the money and give us the ticket. We don’t want to travel free.”
This led to a major discussion in Tamil Nadu and those close to DMK came out with the statement that the woman in the video, Thulasiammal was an AIADMK supporter and that she had tried to belittle the government.
In another instance, four women rejected free ticket travel and insisted on the conductor take their payment in Erode.
After these incidents, the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) has purportedly issued oral instructions to conductors to collect fares if women passengers wish to pay for it.
A conductor in Salem division while speaking to BPNS said, “ There is no provision to collect money and issue tickets to women passengers but daily many women are now forcibly asking us to take the payment, and if we don’t take the money an argument erupts. We have spoken the matter with our department heads and they told us to collect the money and issue tickets if the woman insists on paid travel”.
He said that they are including the fare collected from women under the head of a ticket fare collected from male passengers.
However senior officials of the TNSTC when contacted by BPNS denied such an arrangement of collecting money and said that there was no such provision for collecting money from women travelers in buses.
