After surveying passengers who take the BEST (Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport) buses in Mumbai and surrounding areas in India, BEST is launching women-only “ladies special” buses during rush hour on four routes to try to cut down on the harassment women passengers experience while riding the bus.
“Sunil Shinde, chairman, BEST, said, “We will commence four ladies special buses on the four most crowded routes in the city from June 1. This is a good initiative, welcomed by most. And putting an old tried-but-failed idea to practice again, the undertaking, which caters to 42 lakh passengers every day also plans to bring back women conductors aboard these buses….
We receive a lot of complaints on a regular basis about male passengers misbehaving with women,” said a senior BEST official on the condition of anonymity.
After having initially flirted with the idea of female conductors in 1998 it was even implemented for a short window of time but the transport body did away with it following harassment complaints by conductors the body is planning to resurrect it.
“But this time, the female conductors will be assigned to ladies special buses only. Women conductors earlier pressed into service had complained of eve-teasing and lewd comments from male passengers. After their request, we divested them of the onboard job of the conductor,” added the official.”
The routes and timings of the four buses are:
Route No 169: Worli Village to Plaza Cinema (Dadar) 0845 am
Route No 55: Lower Parel station to Kurle Chowk (Worli) 0850 am
Route No 154: Mahalaxmi station to Nehru Planetarium (Worli) 0905 am
Route No 343: Goregaon east to Nagari Nivara Parishad (Goregaon) 0925 am”
As always when a country starts women-only buses or trains, I wonder why they don’t do more to address the root problems rather than segregating women in a band-aid solution fashion, and, if they did want segregation to be the solution, why they don’t offer the service comprehensively so that all women can use it.
beckie says
Yes, it is sad, but so much easier for the government to do this than try to enforce each act of harassment. So its up to us to change the attitudes. Sigh. Big work ahead.
Concealed Weapon says
Having options for them is always good, but it will not solve the problem. It will only further promote the idea that anywhere but “women only” places is male territory. What if a woman wants to travel with her boyfriend, male friend, brother, father, etc. but not face harassment from other men? Also, women can be harassed by other women, just in a different way.