BENGALURU: Hundreds of plumbers, carpenters, construction workers and other labourers who were issued ‘free bus pass’ from Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) under the Sahayahasta scheme are now paying for their travel as the validity of their passes has expired.
They complained that the passes that lapsed on March 31 are not renewed and are requesting the labour department and BMTC to reissue as they can save some money.
Purushothaman S is a resident of the Chalawadipalya ward and is working as a plumber. He is a daily wager and has to travel to different places from where he gets gigs. “I have been using this free BMTC pass since August 2020 after we got ourselves registered through the labour department. However, when I went to renew the pass that expired in March, officials at BMTC said they are no more issuing free passes for labourers.”
Though he went to the higher-ups at BMTC, they conveyed that they had to stop issuing the free pass as they have not got any directive from the Department of Labour and further added that there were many fake labourers who got into the list of the beneficiary, which was the main reason to stop.
Instead of weeding out the fake beneficiaries, they have completely stopped issuing the free passes. Now workers like me are spending more than Rs 50 every day for their travel to work, he lamented. An official from BMTC said that they discontinued the Sahayahasta passes as they did not get any directive from the labour department.