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Old 31st October 2019, 13:59   #16
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

Let's keep politics out of the discussion and concentrate on core transport aspect of this.

What is my understanding of public transport:

A sustained mode of city transport that moves majority of city dwellers from point A to B in a safe, convenient and economical way. It might not by luxurious, but should meet the quality of standard of its patrons on ease, comfort and safety aspect while being affordable to the majority.

Let me ask few questions first;
  1. Owing to free ride, how much of traffic that uses alternate / private mode of transport (car) are expected to move back to public transport? It has to attract more passengers in way to reduce load on existing traffic infrastructure and also addresses environmental issues that Delhi faces today.
  2. Considering and hopefully there is an increase in load, does DTC have built in the necessary capacity to sustain the load? This also includes, but not limited to the quality of buses, number of seating capacity, security and safety aspects, hygiene matters like clean public toilet facilities etc. assuming, increase in load are mostly comprising of women. If not, it defies the very basic of public transport.
  3. Does DTC have enough provision of fund to accommodate increase in infrastructure cost and maintaining quality of transport as well as decrease in revenue?
What I have seen mostly in Indian cities, cheaper public transport implies very bad quality of buses and pathetic infrastructure, which dissuades general public, especially women from using them. But DTC is among very few of public transport provider which has maintained quality of service all along. I just hope, a proper study had been made before implementing this and provisions been made to address all cumulative issues that might arise of this decision.
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Old 31st October 2019, 14:33   #17
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

I'm against this move. There are equal no of men who needs these bus rides free. Men who are single bread winners of a family would have benefited.

But, I'm against the practice of giving these freebies. If something has a production cost then that should never be free. Govt can subsidize it by removing the Taxes (only) on it. There should be a rule, where the freebies should be given from the Ruling parties kitty and not from the Govt's funds. It's the tax payers money and should be used for the growth of the infrastructure.

OT :- I vouch for this statement by Ex CM of Andhra Pradesh Chandra Babu Naidu- "If you give electricity for free then, we may have to use those transmission lines for drying the clothes in the future"
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Old 31st October 2019, 17:37   #18
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

I belong to a minority of people who prefers not to have an opinion on topics I'm not well-versed in! And gender is certainly one of these topics! At this moment, we do not know the impact of this decision, so I'd say we trial this for atleast a year before we jump to conclusions.

But the truth remains that India has one of the lowest female participation in the workforce in the world! And it has actually fallen from 36.7% in 2005 to 26% in 2018 which is truly appalling, hence 'affirmative action' policies are indeed required to get poor women into the workforce.

I understand the comments made which suggest that poor men are being discriminated against and they indeed are! But we have to remember that India is still by and large a paternal society where men will have to go to work no matter what. However, if the conditions aren't right, women especially the poor women won't be willing (or be allowed by the menfolk in their homes) to go to work! If these women go to work, a major share of costs incurred will easily be recovered due to the increased productivity in the medium to long term.

In a perfect world, we won't need this but then again in a perfect world, 50% of our workforce would be women! I hate the fact that we've to give certain privileges to women so that they will be part of the workforce but honestly, it's one of many controversial options in a conservative society like ours!

As for people who say people won't value public transport if it was free, I'm sorry but it's not like we are valuing it now! Have you seen how people treat Indian trains?
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Old 31st October 2019, 18:57   #19
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

[quote]Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.
Benjamin Franklin[/QUOTE ]

Quote:
Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men's lives.
Robert Kennedy
In a society and consequently, the goverment, that is slowly coming to grips with the concept of tweaking, improving or handing out opportunities, many things have changed, starting with the terminology - the poor became economically challenged, the handicapped became differently abled, and the gender female became the fairer sex. I have no problems with these things, they are afterall just words and an extension of free speech that just happened to be agreed upon by the majority.

What I simply cannot agree with is the absolute bashing or pariahzing of people who may have different views, or seek to expand an argument for any reason. Free speech is in grave danger, specially on the internet.

At the end of the day I would love to make such an inclusivist statement that no one can disagree with, something that includes both genders, all aspects of nature and people of every income level.. but I can't, simply because I don't believe that restitutions are due for things done in the past, where society itself was so different from what it is today.

I hate "quotas" or reservations just as much as I do special VIP treatment, absolute mockery of law by those who run it and last but not least, gender based discrimination. I would be absolutely apalled to know that this would make me a chauvinist (many would believe so looking at my other posts).

What I am for, as far as both genders are concerned, is absolute equality, there are great chefs from both sides, great professors from both sides, great humanitarians from both ends and not to mention it takes the both to perpetuate humankind. A perfect 50-50 balance is what it is about.. give or take a few crude jokes about gender stereotypes which is for entertainment value only and even makes for great bonding in family get togethers (our internet gen takes them too seriously).

If women want to work, more power for them.. if they want to go out, fantastic, be it backpacking or to a cinema hall. For some reason though, I am very scared of biased incentive programs targeting one gender.. it only reeks of generating vote banks, I shall stop here as I too am least interested in politicizing issues.

All I can say as far as this move goes, is that if you're doing this, better do this forever which would ACTUALLY help bring women out and about and plan their budget/careers/life accordingly, just a month long/temporary freebie is like feeding an "economically challenged" individual all he/she can eat for a year after which they should rummage dumpsters for food.. they'd wish they never were born.

In a forum such as this, I do not have to mention that men and women have come this far, resting on each others shoulder for strength. The very term family attests to a union of both genders. I hope we are childish enough to accept small and silly freebies and hand-outs by the rulers, yet not let it divide a union since time immemorial based on an era that has long gone. Antisocial elements come from both sides (perhaps more from the blacker sex) but 5% of scum cannot/should not change society itself. The law should get off its self-righteous chairs and clean up on the streets for a change.

Last edited by dark.knight : 31st October 2019 at 18:59.
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Old 31st October 2019, 19:49   #20
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

As rightly pointed out by many, this is purely an election move as State govt. elections in Delhi early next year. An ideal scenario would have been to provide free/subsidized public transportation to BPL (below poverty line) families in Delhi, utilization of public money would have been better and actual poor/needy would have been benefitted.
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Old 1st November 2019, 11:33   #21
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

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Originally Posted by VJ05 View Post
As rightly pointed out by many, this is purely an election move as State govt. elections in Delhi early next year. An ideal scenario would have been to provide free/subsidized public transportation to BPL (below poverty line) families in Delhi, utilization of public money would have been better and actual poor/needy would have been benefitted.
Agree that such moves are more of impulsive and election oriented in nature but the trouble is once the new government forms post elections it is indeed a much more tough task to roll back such schemes as any such move would invite criticism and label the government as anti feminine.

In this era where blind polarization of opinions against men is the order of the day, no government would dare to take such measures merely to provide social justice to all citizens. As some members here have already suggested that such moves should be implemented by other states as well(), it is only a matter of time before herd mentality kicks in and some other state actually implements it.
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Old 1st November 2019, 12:13   #22
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

Absolutely endorse this idea. First, it encourages more women to travel and to travel longer distances and at odd hours because there will be more like them for support. It opens so many doors that were inaccessible before. Women's dropout rates are highest in the education system for lower strata and it has compounding impacts.

We, or most of us, are too eager to criticise and do not understand that we do it from a privileged position, as men and as rich ones at that. It would be a fraction of a cost for all the flyovers, and airports, that government builds and are used by the upper strata of the society.

If anyone thinks that well off women would benefit from this more, they have not seen the public transport recently!

And this is not socialism, this is what a welfare state is supposed to be. We have all but forgotten about Think about it for a moment, please!
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Old 1st November 2019, 14:27   #23
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

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Originally Posted by avingodb View Post
We, or most of us, are too eager to criticise and do not understand that we do it from a privileged position, as men and as rich ones at that. It would be a fraction of a cost for all the flyovers, and airports, that government builds and are used by the upper strata of the society.
See, again, we have this tendency in India to give a $$ tag to everything and everyone we see. While you made good points, not everyone of us are looking at money wastage or even remotely thinking of money. We know that if globally, money and food are utilized wisely, there would be no poor and more importantly, no hunger.

My thinking is, why apply this benefit to a specific gender (male or female), when the basic need this benefit seeks to satisfy is for those that cannot afford transport willy nilly.

Most of the lower/middle/upper class people in India today, have known that their grandparents in their youth couldn't afford a slipper or lived in a thatched dwelling, and also seen their parents make great sacrifices to get them educated and maintain a home with electricity, food and other small luxuries. In short most of us have saved, studied and worked hard over a long time to be where we are at, in a scenario where jobs and earning opportunities were a fraction of what they are today.

With ADHAAR, PAN, and linked bank accounts, today it would be so simple to give such benefits to the economically backward, male and female. If segregation is a must to ensure female security, they can run more female only buses as well. Muamar Gaddafi for example, gave free education and healthcare for all, gave 5000$ to new mothers, which would help the whole family, free electricity and farming licenses. I'm no supporter of the man (hardly knew about him) but when I first saw a YouTube video of the citizens of Libya stating all these things I was pleasantly shocked.

Kejriwal is a number cruncher, I've no doubt that he worked the finances.. but equality and greater good should be the next step.
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Old 1st November 2019, 22:27   #24
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

There are other downsides of this move, imagine situation like this - A lady earning Rs. 20,000/month, her husband earning around Rs. 40,000/month, have couple of kids in the family can run the family decently within Rs. 60k monthly income. The lady of the house doesn't need free tickets as she can afford to pay bus tickets.

Now, imagine a Man earning only Rs. 20,000/month, his wife is a homemaker with no income and two kids. This man certainly will be having a hard time paying for his bus tickets daily and would immensely benefit from free tickets.

Above is one of many 'use cases' which shows the negative aspects of this one-sided move.
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Old 2nd November 2019, 11:13   #25
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

This is going to kill the already dying transport corporation. Delhi is the forefront in bringing newer and more sophisticated buses and bus business model to the whole country. DTC low floor bus tender way back in 2009 was a big learning curve for Indian bus makers. If AL and Tata are capable of making low floor buses its because of the requirements given by DTC during that time. May of their clause made bus makers to go back to drawing boards to make safer and sophisticated buses. These fellows just for the sake of their selfishness, are killing the morale of the Industry.
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Old 2nd November 2019, 13:35   #26
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

In a perfect world, public transportation should be subsidised more as the benefits from avoiding congestion and incremental pollution can alone pay for the cost of subsidies.

For all the people crying against freebies, I can argue that you aren't paying for the pollution you are generating and you aren't paying enough to maintain the infrastructure. Will you be okay to pay an additional tax at the pump for the pollution you cause and be willing to pay double road tax? If not, you are also a beneficiary of indirect subsidy that's the product of government policy inertia.

Having said that, the implementation of such a populist freebie at in the election year gotta stink nonetheless.
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Old 2nd November 2019, 13:40   #27
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

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Originally Posted by dark.knight View Post

With ADHAAR, PAN, and linked bank accounts, today it would be so simple to give such benefits to the economically backward, male and female. If segregation is a must to ensure female security, they can run more female only buses as well. Muamar Gaddafi for example, gave free education and healthcare for all, gave 5000$ to new mothers, which would help the whole family, free electricity and farming licenses. I'm no supporter of the man (hardly knew about him) but when I first saw a YouTube video of the citizens of Libya stating all these things I was pleasantly shocked.
How do you propose a bus conductor or driver figure someone is economically backward from looking at his Aadhaar or PAN card or any other such card? So there's an element of practicality in this. Its easy to identify women from men also, most families have men and women. So money saved by women is money saved for the family.
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Old 3rd November 2019, 08:54   #28
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

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How do you propose a bus conductor or driver figure someone is economically backward from looking at his Aadhaar or PAN card or any other such card?
I never proposed anything of that sort, when in the box solutions don't make sense, we need to look at the greatest country on earth by miles - America. Their Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aka foodstamps give eligibility debit cards to people who qualify, they can in turn use the debit card to purchase food. Suddenly, things make more sense, the government can get a man's background using ADHAAR, and bank account details, alongwith family and supplemental income details, they issue cards/slips on a monthly /quarterly basis to those that deserve it and that card/slip will be universally accepted across buses and metros. Done.

However, I get that there is a great divide in our nation between central, state and umpteen other agencies so such pro people movements will never see light of day. This scheme, and I mean "scheme", is done for nefarious reasons (as agreed upon by most people). A male only free travel scheme would've had feminists erupt in rage and that would've been withdrawn in one day.

Last edited by dark.knight : 3rd November 2019 at 08:57.
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Old 3rd November 2019, 12:59   #29
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I never proposed anything of that sort, when in the box solutions don't make sense, we need to look at the greatest country on earth by miles - America..

Wait a minute! Are you saying that the greatest country on earth by miles, America, has people living in it that need food stamps? Does not sound so great to me. 😦
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Old 3rd November 2019, 13:51   #30
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Re: Delhi: Free rides for women in DTC, cluster buses from today

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Wait a minute! Are you saying that the greatest country on earth by miles, America, has people living in it that need food stamps? Does not sound so great to me. ��
Well I've come to accept that a country can get only so big (population wise) till a time comes when the negative effects of banking system are visible..given the propensity of people both in govermental authority and as citizens to misuse/overuse their wealth or power.

330 million people is quite a lot and consequently the 100 poor people of yesterday would become 1000 today as population increases, also software and A.I which gave so many jobs a decade ago are taking away jobs today, there is a slowdown in national manufacturing vis a vis a decade ago, Detroit is in doldrums, L.A is burning like coal and finance and banking jobs aren't what they used to be.

It is going down, but that would be the result in a nation of any population that size. Countries in Europe have a distinct advantage of smaller lands, strong and cohesive population (most speak the same language and have similar lifestyles) and much smaller population which results in legal, health and monetary benefits being easier to sustain and be handed out. True countries like Netherlands, U.K, Germany, France etc aren't having quite so many people in need of food or shelter but there arent nearly as many people to begin with.

However what America managed to contribute to the world in terms of technology, entertainment, medical research and a philosophy of living life larger than ever (that hurt then real bad), makes it legendary in my books. Yeah, I know that the bureaucrats combined with the top 1% are the most crooked people ever, unbelievable manipulation globally, but that's what Uncle Sam was made for.
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