BENGALURU: Amid rumours on social media that the Congress’ Shakti scheme, which offers free travel to women in non-premium state-run buses across Karnataka, would be discontinued after August 15 and the immediate clarification from the state government that the scheme will continue, the total ticket value of women passengers has crossed a whopping Rs 900 crore, stooding at Rs 945 crore, with 55 per cent of the total passengers being women.
From June 11, the day the scheme was launched, up to August 16, the total number of passengers were 73.87 crore, out of whom 40.65 crore were women passengers who availed the benefit in all the four bus corporations - KSRTC, KKRTC, NWKRTC and BMTC.
According to the data released by the bus corporations, the highest number of women passengers were in BMTC, at 13.35 crore out of the 24.66 crore total passengers. This was followed by KSRTC, with 12.34 crore women passengers out of a total 22.09 crore passengers. While NWKRTC recorded 9.51 crore women passengers, out of total 16.27 crore, KKRTC recorded 5.44 crore women passengers out of total 10.83 crore.
KSRTC topped the total ticket value with Rs 357.21 crore, followed by NWKRTC with Rs 237.24 crore, KKRTC with Rs 180.19 crore and BMTC with 170.66 crore.
1.51 cr consumers register under Gruha Jyothi
A total of 1.51 crore consumers have registered under the Gruha Jyothi scheme as of August 15, said an official release. The registration for the Gruha Jyothi scheme, providing free power of up to 200 units per month to all household connections, began on June 18. As on July 27, 1,40,31,320 consumers were registered for the scheme, in which eligible consumers have been getting zero bills in their August billing. From July 28 to August 15, around 10.83 lakh consumers have registered under the scheme and the eligible consumers will get zero bills in the September month’s billing cycle. Consumers who registered under Bhagya Jyothi, Kuteera Jyothi and Amrutha Jyothi, are subsumed in the Gruha Jyothi scheme.