Free rides on Delhi metro, DTC buses for women: Who will bear the costs?

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Monday said his government proposes to make metro and bus travels free for women in the national capital. The chief minister said he has directed his officials to study the proposal. The government will also take feedback from the people, he said.

"Women will get free rides in DTC, cluster buses and Delhi Metro," Kejriwal told reporters. The move comes ahead of the Assembly polls in Delhi scheduled to take place early next year.

At a public meeting on Saturday, the chief minister had said his government was mulling making metro and bus travel free for women in Delhi "to encourage them to use public transport". He had also said his government is in touch with the city's power regulator to bring down the fixed charge component of electricity bills.

But the big question is who will bear the costs for the subsidies being provided to women?

Kejriwal criticized Centre for increasing prices of tickets and allegedly rejecting their proposal of subsidies on raised prices.

Delhi CM: Initially we'd told Centre not to increase prices of tickets, they didn't agree. We told them we've 50-50 partnership, let's give 50-50 subsidy on raised prices, they didn't agree. Delhi govt will bear the fare of what we're going to do.We needn't take approval for this pic.twitter.com/4nlPbkUf9k

— ANI (@ANI) June 3, 2019

Delhi government is going to bear the costs of this initiative and therefore, it didn't require Centre's approval, Kejriwal said.