Free rider risks

Delhi's plan for women passengers won't solve anything

There is little debate that the National Capital Region is among the most unsafe urban regions for women worldwide. The public policy response to this demands enlightened education campaigns and a heightened investment on security and vigilance. It is a long, hard slog that usually deters most politicians caught in a five-year electoral cycle — including a woman chief minister who ruled Delhi for 15 years. In that respect, the current Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s proposal to make bus and metro travel free for all women as a means of enhancing their safety reflects an astonishing degree of illogic. It is unclear how a woman travelling in a bus or train will be any safer because she has not paid for her ticket. Just as segregating compartments and seats for women has not made women any safer on public transport, a free ticket is unlikely to enhance their security either.

While Mr Kejriwal alluded to the links between urban mobility and gender equality, he is applying the wrong solution to the problem of women’s safety, perhaps with an eye to the Assembly elections in 2020. In fact, it is unclear why he has included the Delhi Metro in this proposal: Any woman will testify to its international standards of security, which tend to be accentuated once she steps out of the station precincts into the street. Had Mr Kejriwal chosen to study the metro system with even cursory attention he would have noticed the heightened security bandobast that was put in place right from the start. Had similar arrangements, such as the suggestion to have marshals on all buses (and perhaps at the more remote bus stands) been instituted for the bus service, the ordeal for women using public transport would have lessened. Besides, asymmetric pricing benefits tend to be socially divisive. Even women who say they appreciate the potential savings of free travel have expressed their apprehensions of a widening gender divide and male resentment this policy is likely to engender. As a means of encouraging Indian men to see women as social equals, free pricing is the solution of last resort.

Set against these arguments is hard economics. The Delhi government has not explained how it will compensate the two services. The only thing that has been speculated upon is that the proposal is expected to cost the Delhi government around Rs 700 crore on an annual basis. The Delhi Transport Corporation has seen its working losses rise from Rs 942. 89 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,750 crore in 2018-19. Can it afford free riders? As for the Delhi metro, it raised fares after a long gap of eight years to much controversy. Its operating ratio is in in danger of being skewed again if a large segment of its passengers travel free.

Instead of subsidies, Mr Kejriwal would be better off spending taxpayer money on augmenting Delhi’s bus service in terms of quantity and security and working with the central government to train the police force in gender sensitivity to make the national capital safer for women in overall terms. But with less than a year to go for the polls, the easier solution will probably prevail, with all its dubious benefits.