Decision on free bus passes this week

The proposal to issue free bus passes to students is not dead yet. With the Education department offering to bear 25% of the cost, Transport Minister D C Thammanna on Wednesday said a decision would be taken this week after Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy returned from his Delhi tour.

Primary and Secondary Education Minister N Mahesh has offered to foot 25% of the cost. “Once the chief minister is back, both education minister and I will meet him on this. Within this week, we will take a final decision,” Thammanna told reporters.

If the arrangement works out, Thammanna said the road transport corporations will bear 25%, the education department another 25% with the rest 50% borne by the state government.

Providing free bus pass to all categories of students - 19.6 lakh of them - across the state will cost the exchequer about Rs 2,000 crore annually, Thammanna said.

Free bus passes for students was announced by the then chief minister Siddaramaiah in his February 2018 budget. However, during the recent budget session of the legislature, Kumaraswamy had categorically turned down implementing the scheme. “Money was not earmarked in the previous budget and I have other schemes to focus on,” he had told the Legislative Assembly.

Student organisations had threatened to hold protests demanding implementation of the scheme. “I have already spoken to some students’ organisations that have announced protests and have tried to convince them,” Thammanna said.

Asked how the department planned to tackle the financial burden of the free bus pass scheme, Thammanna said there was a proposal to hike bus fares by 20%. “We are yet to take a call on this.”

The minister said all the state-run road transport corporations earned an annual revenue of about Rs 6,000 crore and that the department had sought Rs 1,000 crore as subsidy. Over 400 posts of regional transport officers and inspectors are vacant, he said, adding that steps will be taken to fill them up.