BENGALURU: For the first time in the history of Bengaluru’s public transport system, women have become the majority of all BMTC bus users. A new study from Azim Premji University finds that after the launch of the Karnataka government’s Shakti scheme — which grants free travel on BMTC buses to resident women — women ridership surged by 151 per cent.
The report Gender, Welfare and Mobility: Impact of Shakti Scheme on BMTC Transport Transformation analysed 2.89 crore trip records from January 2023 to January 2025. It concluded that the scheme has triggered a “structural shift in urban mobility”, making buses women-majority spaces on several key corridors within the city.
The study elaborates that the routes run through the Central Business District, including Majestic, KR Market and Shivajinagar, the economic and administrative core of the city with a high concentration of state institutions, major transit hubs, wholesale markets and commercial enterprises.
Free buses outweigh Metro convenience
The study also tracked ridership along Metro-connected corridors, including the KR Puram-Whitefield Purple Line extension. After Metro became operational, overall bus ridership on those routes dropped by 25.6 per cent, indicating that many users shifted to the Metro, but women did not. On multiple routes where BMTC and Metro overlap, Shakti users continued to outnumber paying riders, choosing buses over the faster Metro connection.
A key blind spot: Migrant women excluded
Despite the surge in mobility for women, the scheme’s benefits are restricted only to those who can prove domicile in Karnataka. The study warns that this leaves out interstate migrant women — often garment workers, domestic workers and daily wage earners — who depend heavily on public transport but lack the required local documentation.
The report states, “One ethical imperative should be to expand to include interstate migrant women, who are currently excluded on domicile grounds.” Their exclusion, the report argues, weakens the welfare intent of the programme and overlooks its productivity benefits.