Metro fare: Over 56 pc women to look for less safer, cheaper transport, says survey

New Delhi:  More than 65 per cent of women in the national capital would be forced to look for less safer and cheaper modes of transportation in the wake of metro fare hike, reveals a survey by the Delhi Commission for Women.

Also, 96.98 per cent of the women want the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to immediately roll back the fare hike. During the survey, conducted today, the Commission spoke to 2,516 women outside 36 metro stations in the city.

“68.68 per cent of the women stated that they would be forced to adopt less safer modes of transportation or would be forced to travel less frequently and won’t be able to use the metro as frequently as earlier,” the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) said in a statement. The survey revealed that around 61.57 per cent women said they would face severe issues in managing their household expenses following the fare hike.

The DCW had sought a detailed report from the DMRC last month and as per the reply it was observed that the DMRC “miserably failed” to increase revenue generation capabilities from alternate sources and moreover it had not yet incurred any losses, and all losses were only projected, the statement said.

In an earlier letter to Union Minister of Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri, the DCW had apprised him of the gaping loopholes in the fare hike recommendation report and had asked the Centre to roll back the fare hike. However, the DMRC went ahead with the fare hike despite severe opposition from the state government, it said. DCW Chief Swati Maliwal termed the fare hike a “draconian step by the centre and a highly anti-women measure”.

“At a time when six rapes and several cases of eve- teasing and harassment are reported each day, the metro fare hike has forced women to go back to less safer modes of transportation,” Maliwal said.