Free Transport for Women: On June 3rd, New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has announced free public rides for Women. Women in New Delhi can now opt for free DTC bus or Metro services. The Delhi government will bear the cost of implementing this. It is not mandatory that women have to travel for free. If they want to pay, they can.
A survey in 2017Â ranked Delhi the most unsafe place in the world for women. Crimes against women in Delhi have seen a phenomenal increase between 2007 and 2016. In Delhi, a large fraction of women is from poor and lower-middle-class families. So they are constrained to walk long distances or use unsafe modes of transport than buying a bus ticket. So Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has taken this initiative calling it an investment in women safety.
Public transport is considered to be the safest mode of travel and taking this into account, the Kejriwal government has decided to make travel free for women on the Metro, DTC buses and cluster buses. Besides, there will be economic empowerment of women by improving access to education and job opportunities.
This benefit can also help in reducing pollution since now Women will be willing to take public transport for a free ride. If this initiative can help to keep women safe in New Delhi, then this can continue in other states too.
But this also has a disadvantage since now males have to give more subsidy so that the budget doesn’t fall short. Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP was badly jolted by BJP winning all the 7 seats in the Lok Sabha Assembly. This might also reason that the AAP government has introduced this scheme to win the Rajya Sabha seats.
Almost a million women will enjoy free public transport as part of an attempt to make the Indian capital safer, New Delhi's regional government sayshttps://t.co/UoSaiAimhy
— AFP news agency (@AFP) June 3, 2019
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