Free metro rides for women to cost Rs 1,560 cr, says DMRC. Raises red flags
The Delhi government is likely to extend its free travel for women scheme in Metro’s feeder buses too. Critical in ensuring last mile connectivity in the city, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) at present is operating a fleet of 174 feeder buses in which it plans to add 905 buses soon.
The DMRC, in its proposal submitted to the Delhi government, stated that implementing the free travel for women scheme would result in an annual loss of around Rs 1560 crore, out of which Rs 11 crore will be incurred in its feeder buses.
On Wednesday, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that the Delhi government would pay the DMRC for the expenses in providing the scheme. It was on June 3 when Kejriwal had first announced that his government is working on a proposal to offer free rides to women in Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses, cluster buses and the Delhi Metro.
In its report, a copy of which was seen by Hindustan Times, the DMRC while offering two “stop-gap” options to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government repeatedly raised concerns over large scale misuse of the free-travel scheme. “The scheme, since it depends on manual checks, has very high risk of misuse by individuals as well as misuse in organsied manner… The amount spent on the scheme will also be in-fructuous,” reads the eight-page proposal.
