Jahangir Sofi
Srinagar, Jan 16: Women commuters continue to suffer across Kashmir especially in Srinagar as traffic authorities continue to fail to enforce their own directive of ensuring the due seat allocation.
While the traffic authorities acknowledge that the Motor Vehicle Act (MVA) 1988 mentioned the seat reservation of 33% for women in the local buses, they further stated that an order in 2012 was also issued to reserve the eight seats for women in public transport.
There is hardly any implementation of directions on the ground the due share of seat reservation for ladies has been majorly encroached upon by the male bastion in public transport service in the valley.
Many women and young girls said that despite reserved ladies’ seats they have to keep standing in overcrowded public transport buses, and accused the transport authorities of not enforcing the seat reservation law.
Andleeb Jan, a student from Srinagar said that many other female commuters have to hang around the overcrowded buses until any male passengers voluntarily offer their seats to female passengers.
Other female commuters accused the traffic authorities of not ensuring the availability of reserved seats to women in public transport and said that traffic police should take strict action against those who do not follow the rules.
A group of female commuters remarked, “It is tough for a woman to ask a male to give up the reserved seat, yet many offer the seat voluntarily, not just only reserved seat but also non-reserved seats, but in most circumstances, men decline and put us in an unpleasant situation.”
They said: “We cannot implement the orders, but whenever we ask male passengers to leave the seats assigned for women, we frequently have to deal with rough situations from belligerent passengers.”
While the transport authorities and bus operators admit the rampant violations of the motor vehicle act when it comes to giving the due right to female commuters, transport authorities at Regional Transport Office in Srinagar said that they would ensure the compliance of i’s own directions of granting reserved seats to ladies in public transport. “We will soon start inspection of the buses and mini-busses whether they offer the required seats to women,” said an official.
In Srinagar, the ‘Ladies Special Bus’ service was started by the Chief Minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti in 2016 for women passengers. The service was started with the objective of convenience for females.
With a seating capacity of 32 each in a bus, Jammu and Kashmir Road Transport Corporation (JKRTC) last year in the month of September reviewed the timings of all ‘five Ladies Special coaches’ in the city to figure out the female commuter flow and to find out if there is any more requirement for adding more ladies special bus coaches. According to the JKRTC officials, ‘Ladies Special Bus’ Service has a thirty-two-seat bus capacity in each bus
Highlighting the dearth of ‘Ladies Special Coaches’ the female commuters in the valley have been demanding the Ladies Special Bus Service not just in Srinagar but in other districts of the valley where educational institutions and other government or private offices are located.
