As schools reopen, govt plans early issuance of free bus passes

As the schools were opened for Classes 1 to 12, the Tamil Nadu government has taken steps to issue free bus pass for the State-run students soon.

The state authorities’ move to distribute free bus passes within a short period of time came against the backdrop of requests from several government school students that bus conductors were insisting to buy tickets through the government at present allowed them travel free of cost in school uniform.

Bus passes are being issued every year to students studying in Classes 1 to 12 in all schools including those of self-financial institutions for providing easy access to their schools. This scheme is being implemented by the State Transport Department.

A senior official from the School Education Department said as per the instructions from the Transport Department, a circular has been issued to all the schools to collect the details of the students and send it immediately via email through the prescribed format.

Stating that every year the Schol Education Department is spending about Rs 320 crore for distributing free bus passes to the students, he said about 23 lakh school students were benefited. According to him, free bus passes was also distributed even to diploma and college students, who were hailing from the poor family background.