Metro Freebies For Women?

Delhi government CM and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal doesn't see eye to eye with the PM Modi-led Union government. Lately, CM Arvind Kejriwal's policy regarding transportation fares of women has sparked a lot of debates. The policy discusses the diminishing of charges for women to encourage them to use public transport.

The announcement of this policy has been met with mixed reactions. Opposition government has criticized this move as a resort to gain favour in the upcoming elections. Even the public seems apprehensive of the policy as it doesn't provide adequate results. The policy is targeted towards women, encouraging them to travel more often using public transport but it doesn't guarantee their safety. There has been no conversation about the transgender population and their inclusion in the policy. The public consensus so far has been the concern of lowering the fares for everybody, aiming to help the poor and marginalized sections of the society.

MoS of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri in a discussion with India Today TV mentioned that CM Kejriwal had made no proposals to the Central government and the DMRC before announcing the policy.

Kejriwal has a budget of Rs.50,000 crore. He is neither using it for Swachhta in Delhi nor is he giving Delhi citizens benefits of Ayushman Bharat scheme by the Central government. But now he wants to give a freebie of RS 1,200 crore. This needs to be debated. BJP is all for women. But this is not a scheme. Kejriwal has made an announcement first but DMRC or us haven't received any proposal as of yet.

But defending and promising the policy of free rides, AAP minister Kailash Gahlot in an interview with India Today TV disagreed with Puri.

Hardeep Puri is simply lying. There are a number of meetings, which have taken place between the DMRC and Delhi transport department, and even at the moment, a search meeting is taking place to finalise the blueprint. Government has the budget for such schemes.

Despite the back and forth, the public concerns are still to be answered. The debate is surrounding the concern of safety and welfare of the population and if the Delhi government's allocated budget is sufficient, then Metro prices should be reduced for all rather than just one section of the society.

Though this policy will benefit the section of women there are other changes that need to be brought. Only data-driven research can provide adequate results for measures that need to be taken. On the question of safety of women, there are measures such as increasing of the Ladies quota in the metro or actively making the general sections more safe. Other options such as special buses only for women has been brought up and even the installation of CCTVs. These changes hopefully push the conversation around safety towards a better direction.