With the 2019 lok Sabha elections less than a year away, the Yogi Adityanath government could dole out a major sop for BPl card holders in the form of free ride in government buses.
The Road Transport department has draft a proposal for providing free bus travel for Below Poverty line (BPl) family members which has been sent for government nod.
A senior Transport department official said that the proposal has been made keeping in mind problems being faced by the poor families during commutations. “The ball is now in the court of the government as it will now have to take the call,” the official said.
“The proposal says that there wre around 10 million BPl families in the state and to provide them free travel, the department would require Rs 2990 per family. The total revenue burden on the Transport department could be around Rs 3000 crore annually to implement the scheme,” the official said.
The draft says that once the proposal was accepted, the Transport department would issue smart card to BPl families and they could travel free on government buses.
“Besides free travel , the BPl family will also get accidental insurance coverage of Rs 10 lakh per family including Rs five lakh in case of death,” he said.
The Transport department has also suggested that departments like Panchayati Raj, Rural Development, Agriculture and Health could bear the cost to implement the scheme.
The official said that the scheme if implemented would provide security to girls and women of rural areas who use private transport for cheaper fare and were apprehensive of harassment.
Meanwhile, the Transport department has fixed a target to connect all 1.07 lakh villages of the state with bus services in the next five years. Presently, the department is running buses connecting 58,000 villages covering 18,000kms across the state.