Mo Bus, the public transport facility started by the Odisha government two years ago, will not charge women passengers in all of its 200 buses on March 8 to celebrate International Women’s Day.
Dipti Mahapatro, the general manager of the Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) which runs the fleet of Mo Bus in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Puri, said the decision to give the free rides to the women passengers was their way of honouring them.
“We are happy to share that we had been pioneers in promoting lady guides as part of our workforce since our inception. More than 30% of guides are lady guides who are serving and empowering the favourite public transport brand ‘MO BUS’ in the Capital Region,” Mahapatro said.
CRUT runs a fleet of 200 buses that crisscross Bhubaneswar, Puri and Cuttack for more than 12 hours a day. The Mo Bus service, which started functioning in 2018, covers 73% area of the Capital city and makes about 1800 trips every day.
After reducing its fares in October last year, its ridership grew by 23%. In October alone, Mo Bus had reached a ridership of 100,000.
As a small token of respect and appreciation for all the women @CRUT_BBSR will offer free ride to all our female passenger in Mo Bus on the #WomensDay
Please spread the word. pic.twitter.com/jsEQgJGBAn
— Arun Bothra 🇮🇳 (@arunbothra) March 7, 2020
The Mo Bus service was adjudged the best city bus service project in November last year at the Urban Mobility India Conference and Expo held in Lucknow.
While cities like Lucknow, Kochi and Jaipur have a daily city bus ridership of 25,000-30,000, the Mo Bus ridership has an average ridership of 85,000.
As soon as the declaration was made on CRUT’s official Twitter handle, it received a positive response from many users.
However, there were a few criticisms and memes as well.
