●     BMTC, used by lakhs of common people for their daily living, is the most expensive city bus service in the country. Its high fare is unaffordable for a large number of people in the city

●     Economic distress and the pandemic have pushed many more people into extreme poverty, especially in urban areas. Lack of affordable transportation locks them into a vicious cycle of poverty, unable to come out of it on their own efforts. 

●     A significant reduction in bus fares will provide common people the essential support needed to access economic opportunities and improve their lives; Free travel for women, transgender community, senior citizens and students will give them greater mobility and access as they suffer multiple disadvantages

●     Karnataka Govt must allocate funds to BMTC in the 2022-23 budget to enable the bus corporation to reduce bus fares and make travel free for women.

People travel daily in the city for all essential needs – to buy supplies, to workplaces to earn a living, to gain education, to hospitals or clinics for healthcare. Mobility is what makes life in the city possible. Its availability and affordability are critical for people to have a dignified life and the city to function. 

A city with high concentration of wealth, Bengaluru has high levels of poverty and inequity as well. An estimated 25% to 35% of its population lives in slums[1]. A 2017 study found that the median monthly income of a slum dweller was around ₹3,000[2]. Recent surveys[3] have shown that income levels of the poorest 40% of people in India have dropped by 30% to 50% in the last 5 years. Urban poverty has increased significantly post pandemic, with people in the middle-income category moving into lower middle-income category. The survey data shows that the casual labour, petty trader, household workers in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities got hit most by the pandemic.

BMTC buses are the lifeline of transport in Bengaluru. Before the pandemic, 35 lakh people were travelling by BMTC. 

BMTC fares also the highest among all Indian cities. The high cost of travel on BMTC buses is squeezing the already scant earnings of the urban poor. Many are forced to walk long distances to save on transportation costs. They are regularly forced to cut down on other expenses such as health or education and even nutrition for their children, as travel expenses for the whole family end up being high. Their access to better work, education, or health is constricted by the high cost of travel. 

Public Hearing: Is the bus service in Bengaluru affordable for common people?

Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike, a public transport advocacy group, organized a public hearing on Feb 15th 2022, on this question. A wide cross section of working communities from across the city testified before a people’s jury. Domestic workers, pourakarmikas, health workers, students, farmers, senior citizens and many others attested to the economic distress they are in and how access to livelihood, medical care, education are all severely impacted by the high bus fares and inadequate services. Students are dropping out of education. Even families with two earning members are struggling to meet basic needs or care for elders. Single woman headed households are left with very little for other needs after spending on travel. HIV patients and terminally ill patients from vulnerable communities are finding it difficult to access essential medical care. The public hearing brought out the silent and invisible suffering of the working people who make the city function despite the exclusion and deprivation they face. Many respondents referred to women in other states like Tamil Nadu being able to travel without fare and asked why a wealthy city like Bangalore is unable to extend such a scheme for women in Bangalore!

The people’s jury consisted of transport experts, academics, social activists and a people’s representative. They noted with concern that the high bus fares and inadequate bus services are imposing a high cost on people, especially the working class. They also pointed out several discrepancies in the way bus services are provisioned in the city. For example, BMTC’s stage fare scheme prices short trips disproportionately high. Student passes are limited to specific routes, severely constraining access for students. Service gaps are more pronounced in poorer areas in the city where marginalized communities live. Inadequate services and poor first and last mile connectivity leave the low-income families at the mercy of share-auto arrangements which are expensive. The jury observed that these problems are a result of treating BMTC as a for-profit entity instead of a public service. Without financial support from the government, BMTC is forced to rely on its revenues to sustain its operations and therefore, keep the ticket prices high and predominantly operate routes which are seen as profitable. Referring to public expenditure of 1000s of crores on Metro, jury members remarked that the need for public funding for BMTC is being ignored, despite its much larger ridership than Metro. 

The jury offered two essential perspectives through which bus services and bus commuters in the city should be seen: I) Recognize the essential interlinkage between access to high quality, affordable bus services and broad domains of human wellbeing such as access to education, access to gainful employment, access to markets for farmers and merchants, access to healthcare facilities and empowerment of girls and women. II) Using the bus is not taking a public service, but doing a public service. Bus users reduce the requirement of road space and help ease road congestion, by doing so, they help reduce the billions of rupees that the city loses every year due to congestion, they help reduce local air pollution and generation of greenhouse gases, they help reduce loss of life and injuries due to traffic accidents

Some of the key policy recommendations made by the jury are:

1. Bus users should be compensated for the numerous extensive positive benefits they confer on the city. A direct mechanism to do this is to provide free (or at least subsidised) access to bus services in the city.
2. The free fare bus travel for women is essential to improve the physical and emotional health of women working in informal low-income jobs and their families. It will allow them a safe and dignified commute to work, access to healthcare and strengthen the educational achievements of girls.
3. Given that affordable bus transport and human wellbeing are essentially interlinked, bus fare reforms need to involve alternative funding interventions from education, social welfare, and human resources departments/ministries
4. The introduction of mini-buses will reduce travel expenses for first and last-mile connectivity in peri-urban and sub-urban localities of Bengaluru.

What have other cities done?
-     Mumbai slashed bus fares in 2019 and fixed the fare slabs at ₹5 (up to 5 km), ₹10 (5-10 km), ₹15 (10-15 km) and ₹20 (above 15 km).

-     The Delhi government made a radical shift in the same year by making bus travel free for women.

-     In April 2021, the Punjab government announced state-wide free travel for all women on regular government buses, benefiting more than 1.3 crore residents.

-     The Tamil Nadu government followed suit in May 2021 with a similar policy.

These state and city governments are financially supporting bus corporations to achieve the critical social and economic goals of affordable mobility and greater access to opportunities for women. In Mumbai, Bombay Municipal Corporation sanctioned financial aid of Rs. 600 Crores to BEST to support the bus corporation. In Tamil Nadu, the free travel scheme for women will cost the government Rs. 1200 Crores annually. 

Delhi, Punjab and Tamil Nadu have focused on making travel free for women in government buses across the state. Surveys have shown that free travel results in increased monthly savings[4]. Furthermore, as more women use buses, they feel safer in the bus. Civil society organisations point out that men accompanying women riders are adding to ridership in buses on the whole. With bus travel being significantly cheaper than other modes, people using private vehicles also have an incentive to shift to public transport, leading to lesser congestion in the city.

Our Demands

Research has shown that lack of access to affordable transportation leads to multiple layers of deprivation and locks people into poverty, severely limiting their ability to overcome poverty and improve their living conditions on their own. Making bus travel affordable for common people and free for women can provide a big relief to all the people living in the city and struggling to make a living and improve access to more economic opportunities and better their living conditions.

We demand that the Govt of Karnataka enact the following immediately:

Reduce BMTC ticket prices! Allocate 1000 Cr to BMTC in budget annually for this!

1. Reduce BMTC fares by half for general public
2. Make BMTC travel free for women, transgender community and senior citizens
3. Make students’ pass free; Allow students to use the pass to travel anywhere in the city, not only to and from school/college
4. Deploy additional bus routes or more schedules in areas where there is inadequate bus service

 
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata2017200
[2] Roy, D. et al. Survey-based socio-economic data from slums in Bangalore, India. Sci. Data 5:170200 doi: 10.1038/sdata.2017.200 (2018)
[3] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/income-of-poorest-fifth-plunged-53-in-5-yrs-those-at-top-surged-7738426/
[4] In Delhi, More Women Are Taking Free Bus Rides. Is Aap's Scheme Making Them Feel the City Is Safer?,” Scroll.in, December 3, 2019, https://bit.ly/3jMa27X