Telangana to issue smart cards for Mahalakshmi free bus scheme as women ridership hits 67%

Hyderabad: The Telangana government will introduce chip-based smart cards for beneficiaries of the Mahalakshmi free bus travel scheme, Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar told the State Legislative Assembly this week.

The announcement comes in the wake of the scheme crossing a landmark 283.94 crore women passengers utilising free rides since its launch in December 2023. This amounted to women occupying 67.39 per cent of ridership.

How does State govt plan to introduce smart cards?

Responding to a question on the floor of the House, the government said beneficiary data is currently being compiled from five sources:

- Telangana Technology Services (TGTS)

- Centre for Good Governance (CGG)

- Self-Help Group (SHG) networks

- Education Department

- Health Department

“The smart cards will bring accuracy and accountability to the scheme. We are pulling data from five departments to ensure every genuine beneficiary is accounted for before we issue the cards,” said the Department of Transport in the Assembly.

The smart cards, once issued, are expected to replace the current Aadhaar-based verification system and allow better tracking of journeys for reimbursement purposes.

Why the move to smart cards?

At present, all women, girls and transgender persons with a valid Aadhaar card can board any TSRTC bus free of charge, without an income cap on the travel benefit.

The scheme operates on 81 per cent of the total TSRTC fleet.

However, the absence of a dedicated card has made it difficult to generate accurate beneficiary data for the government’s reimbursement to the corporation, the Transport Department said.

A chip-based smart card would create a traceable record for each journey, enabling TSRTC to claim reimbursements with greater precision and allowing the state to monitor usage patterns, identify underserved routes and plan capacity accordingly.

Launch details yet to be announced

The government has not announced a timeline for the rollout.

Data collection from the five departments is ongoing and the process of verifying and deduplicating beneficiary records across databases of different quality and coverage is expected to take several months.

Scale of the scheme

The numbers presented to the Assembly underscore how quickly the programme has been absorbed into daily life.

From its launch on December 9, 2023, to March 11 this year, a total of 283.94 crore women passengers have travelled for free under the scheme, an average of roughly 34.37 lakh journeys every single day.

Scheme’s effect on State pockets

The financial scale is equally striking.

TSRTC earned Rs 1,163.07 crore in reimbursements for the partial financial year 2023-24 (December 2023 to March 2024), and Rs 4,122.79 crore for the full financial year 2024-25.

In aggregate, women travellers have saved an estimated Rs 9,222 crore in transport costs since the scheme began.

Perhaps the most telling indicator of the scheme’s reach is the change in the gender composition of TSRTC’s passenger base. Before the Mahalakshmi scheme was introduced, women accounted for roughly 40 per cent of total bus passengers in the state.

That share has now climbed to 67.39 per cent.