Tamil Nadu’s expanded Vettri Payanam scheme has enabled about 5.9 crore women’s bus journeys since its rollout on October 2, while operational changes linked to the programme have also reduced fares for male passengers on selected routes across the state, officials said.
About 88 lakh women used the free travel facility on October 7 alone, while the government has recorded an average of 84.32 lakh zero-fare tickets every day across the expanded network of 12,692 buses. The figures cover metropolitan, urban, mofussil and ghat services operated by the state’s seven State Transport Corporations.
The scheme, originally available on ordinary city and town buses and for journeys of up to 40 km in hilly regions, has now been extended to Express, Limited Stop Services, Deluxe, Suburban Ordinary and Ghat Ordinary services operating beyond that distance. Women passengers can use the facility without an income ceiling or a limit on the number of daily trips.
The expansion has also altered fares for men on several routes. On the Tirunelveli-Tiruchendur route, the fare has fallen from Rs 50 to Rs 38. In Tiruvannamalai district, the fare for male passengers has been reduced from Rs 10 to Rs 7, while fares have also been revised on 65 buses in Kanyakumari district. In Vellore, Tirupattur and Ranipet, 128 buses operating under different services have been converted into ordinary buses.
According to the report, the changes have reduced male passenger fares by between Rs 3 and Rs 12 on specific routes. The reduction is not described as a direct cut in the government’s base ticket pricing. Instead, transport authorities have redesignated or adjusted some higher-fare services, including Express, Limited Stop Services and Deluxe buses, as ordinary services or moved them to simpler operating schedules.
The changes are intended to accommodate increased passenger demand following the expansion of free travel for women and to align operations with the scheme’s subsidy tracking. Because ordinary services carry lower fares, male passengers travelling on the same routes have also benefited from the revised classifications.
The initiative was announced by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay under Rule 110 in the Assembly on August 24 and formally launched on October 2 at Chennai’s Koyambedu Bus Terminus. The government has said the programme is designed to prevent transport costs from restricting women’s access to education, employment, livelihoods, medical care and other essential services.
Transport Minister A Vijay Tamilan Parthiban said the scheme also covered transgender passengers and was intended to support education, employment, livelihoods and economic empowerment. The immediate operational challenge for the transport corporations is to maintain service availability across the expanded network while processing the subsidy-linked changes across different bus categories and routes.
