Blessed with 'Shakti', women take to religious tourism

Religious places in Karnataka are seeing a sudden influx of passengers after the government rolled out its ‘Shakti' scheme, which enables women to travel free of charge on state-run buses, leading to jam-packed stations, shortage of vehicles and fraying of tempers.

Dharmasthala, Kukke Subramanya, Sringeri, Udupi, host to important temples, are witnessing a flood of devotees, mostly driven by women — an unexpected fallout of the scheme that has generated much buzz.

At least two division controllers from the North Western Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKSRTC) in the Kittur Karnataka region told DH that there has been demand for more buses to Dharmasthala, Kukke Subramanya and Udupi.

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Sources at the Dharmasthala bus stand said the rush on the weekend and Monday was twice as large, with the Dharmasthala-Subramanya route seeing a high number of passengers.

“The crowd was uncontrollable at the bus stand on Monday and Tuesday. They demanded bus service to Kukke Subramanya. For every 45 men, there were around 110 to 120 women waiting for buses," said a senior officer at the KSRTC's Dharmasthala depot.

Earlier, the officer said, the ratio used to be "60:40 in favour of men". But no longer. "Women police personnel were deployed to ensure that the situation does not go out of control," said the officer.

Jayakar Shetty, Puttur Division controller of KSRTC, said the rush is more than what is witnessed during the summer holidays.

“On Monday, we had to allocate an additional five buses between Dharmasthala and Kukke Subramanya. Most of the passengers were women,” he said, adding that diversion of buses on this route can disturb school trips in the region as there are limited resources.

Udupi received women passengers in droves following the launch of the scheme.

Rajesh Shetty, Mangaluru Division controller, said on Sunday 940 women passengers came to Udupi from across the state using the free bus service. On Monday, 6,970 women disembarked at Udupi, he said, giving a glimpse of the scale of the rush.

The Mangaluru division saw nearly 25,464 women travelling in government buses on the two days (Sunday and Monday) and the division could have earned worth Rs 11.96 lakh if all the passengers were counted.

He said his division is receiving huge demand for starting more government buses.

Staff at receiving end

Lack of clear guidelines from the government on ID proofs and applicability of the scheme on inter-state routes is putting conductors in a fix. “We are ending up facing the wrath of passengers due to regular changes in rules, especially related to Aadhaar, inter-state and others,” said a woman conductor on the Vijaypur-Goa route.

"A majority of women and their male companions, who migrate to Goa in search of jobs, end up fighting with us stating that the government has made the journey free in all the buses to all the destinations," she said.