CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Saturday alleged that personal information of women who are availing free ride in buses run by state transport corporations are being collected, and strongly condemned the move saying seeking information like name, age, caste, mobile number of the passengers is never heard of and such a move would be tantamount to interfering in the individual rights of the women concerned.
Palaniswami, in a statement here, said there were reports that in the past few days, conductors of state-owned transport corporation buses in the districts of Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, and Tiruvallur have been asking the women passengers who avail of free bus rides to fill 15 particulars on the forms supplied by the transport corporations.
“When conductors asked for this information about women passengers, it led to wordy duels. Besides, when women give their mobile numbers, there are possibilities of fellow passengers taking note of them and trying to disturb them later. Asking for the caste of the women is condemnable and nowhere in public transport such questions are asked,” Palaniswami added.
The AIADMK leader further asked whether the state government pondered over the after-effects of extending the information-gathering exercise to the rest of the state.According to sources, the details are being collected as part of a survey that aims to identify the demography of women passengers who are benefitting from the free bus travel scheme.“At present, there is only data on the total number of beneficiaries. There is no information on the specific social groups that the initiative is benefitting. This is being undertaken in ordinary buses,” they said.