Karnataka Budget's bus pass scheme: Make it free for all women

The recent Karnataka budget announcement on free bus passes for women working in the organised sector is a useful case for analysing the government’s approach to policy making. While budgets before elections are more voter signalling without material public good, such policies still need to stand the test of reason.

To understand this policy, begin by asking if it is being formulated in response to a recognised need in society, based on data and evidence, or in response to demands from sections of society. The need for subsidised public transport for women is apparent and backed unequivocally by data.

The female labour force participation rate in Karnataka (2020-2021) as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey is 25.1%; this compares to 57.5% of all eligible men in the formal sector. The other three-quarters of eligible and interested women are employed in the informal sector as casual labour, like street vendors, construction workers, domestic and sanitation workers, NREGA agricultural and plantation laborers, etc., or in local and small-scale self-employment in food production, tailoring, tutoring, childcare, etc., or engaged in unpaid household and childcare work.

The same survey assesses an average wage gap of 33% between men and women across sectors and jobs. Women are either relegated to unpaid or the worst-paying jobs, or when they work in similar jobs, they are paid two-thirds of what men in equivalent jobs earn, for the most part.

Furthermore, low pay has high stickiness, affording women neither the spare cash to commute for better jobs nor the buffer to improve their skills to compete for better opportunities. This is in addition to the social impediments for working women: family constraints, patriarchy, domestic chores, etc.

The consequences of low enrolment of women in the formal job sector are that they earn less, have less to spend, and hence both their socio-economic status and the state’s and country’s GDP are less than optimal. What is clear as day is that women’s participation in the formal sector and wage parity are win-win for women’s individual financial stability, their families’ well-being, and the state’s economy. However, the announced policy only applies to women working in the formal sector.

Beyond employment, women’s gross enrolment ratio in colleges at the undergraduate level is only 32% in Karnataka, meaning that 2/3s of school-educated women do not enrol in college due to socio-economic hurdles, including disallowing women from travelling farther for college education, livelihood necessities, and the pressure of marriage. Male GER is also low in Karnataka.

All this is clear evidence for policy formulation, and in particular, the elements pertaining to travel and commute for higher education and better employment opportunities make a compelling case for tweaking transport policies to be universal for all women and all students too.

Indeed, the Vidya Vahini scheme benefits all female students by providing free bus passes. Ditto for women working in the formal sector. For casual labour, i.e., 2/3s of working women, there is only an allowance of free bus passes for construction and garment sector workers in Bengaluru, and that too on a cost-sharing basis with the companies. This has backfired, with the labour department not providing or renewing passes and companies refusing to share the commute costs of their labour.

Such framing not only excludes legitimate potential beneficiaries, it creates hurdles for the chosen women themselves. It calls for women, who in addition to holding jobs bear the majority of the domestic and childcare burden, to take off precious time to secure and collect documentation, signatories for their work status, and then stand in line for the pass and its renewals. It also requires the bus system to check every usage for validity and fraud.

Besides efficiency issues, the government of Karnataka’s selection formula for beneficiaries is illogical. If the criterion is low earnings, then the biggest chunk of employed women, those in the informal sector, should form the head of the line. Their consumption and earnings are likely to rise if the commute is free, benefiting themselves and the economy at large. However, they are almost entirely excluded by design or implementation. How does a distributive policy exclude the most needy?

Contrast this with the system in Tamil Nadu, where all women travel free, be they students, working in the formal or informal sector, or for family, children, or health reasons. It needs no bus pass or documentation, and implementation is reduced to eye-balled verification.

Evidence in Karnataka argues the need for free public transport as a policy for women, based on their socio-economic indicators and gender disparities. Further, there has been no demand from specific quarters, geographies, or economic sectors that does not apply to others. However, the policies as a basket, allow random beneficiaries not free travel but eligibility for free bus passes. This imposes additional processing and verification costs upon the state, plus the cost of their travel, plus procurement and maintenance costs on eligible women. In many of these cases, there is also the additional cost of processing or partial sponsorship for the employer or educational institution.

Free public transport for women is a progressive policy with benefits across the socio-economic and gender realms and sustainable governance. This is exactly the kind of policy that lends itself to low administrative overheads for expansive beneficiaries, with outcomes stretching beyond the economic to include clean air, better public health, and a reduced carbon footprint. It begs to be universal for all women.

The policy, as it stands, is reductive and unreasonable. Perhaps it is ideological shackles that have pigeonholed it into an unviable half-measure! The notorious epithet “revadi,” used by the Prime Minister for opposition promises, may have cast its blighting shadow on not just sound welfare but even
compelling election promises
in Karnataka.

(The writer is the co-founder of Political Shakti and Citizens for Bengaluru.)