Big response to free travel facility for women in APSRTC buses

Free travel facility in APSRTC services launched under the Stree Shakti scheme by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on August 15 is evoking a big response from women.

A team of journalists who travelled by a Palle Velugu bus starting from Pundit Nehru RTC bus station in Vijayawada to Guntur this morning saw 75% occupancy. When enquired an woman passenger Sravani of Velagaleru village who accompanied her husband Ramesh for health check up in a corporate hospital in Tadepalli said the free travel scheme turned as a boon to her as she was able to travel free of cost to take her ailing husband to hospital.

She said the free travel scheme has given a big relief to a large number of women workers daily Commuting between their village Velagaleru to Vijayawada city. She said that more than 50 women of Velagaleru village working in shopping malls and hospitals in Vijayawada used to travel from her village daily. Now they all benefited from the free travel facility.

Another girl student Lasya pursuing engineering course in electronics who boarded the bus to attend her classes in Acharya Nagarjuna University responding with anxiety and happiness said that she used to travel between Kondapalli village to Nagarjuna University daily by purchasing a route pass of Rs 1140 per month. Now she is able to save the money with the free travel gift of Chandrababu Naidu. She is confident of completing her engineering education with the facility easily. She said it is not a lone case of herself hundreds of girl students of her village getting benefit with the Stree Shakti scheme.

Another woman, Mary who was proceeding to Guntur along with two other women, observed that the free travel facility turned out to be a gift to poor and middle class women.Sitting with confidence she produced an Aadhaar card and collected zero fare tickets from the conductor.

Meanwhile, during a review meeting, the Chief Minister was informed that there was tremendous response for the free travel scheme for women and nearly 12 lakh women travelled free of cost in RTC services within 30 hours of implementation of the scheme saving Rs 5 crore.

After getting feedback from people over the Implementation of scheme, the Chief Minister directed the officials to allow the free travel facility on ghat road routes also. Under the direction of the Chief Minister the RTC officials are making efforts to simplify the identification process of women passengers.