Free bus passes likely for BMC schools’ students

Mumbai : To stop the dropout rate and facilitate municipal schools’ stu-dents, the Brihanmumbai Mun-icipal Corpora-tion (BMC) is pla-nning to provide free bus pas-ses to stude-nts studying in its schools. The proposal was put forward by the Brihanmumbai Electri-city Supply and Transp-ort (BEST) committee member and it was unanimously pass-ed by the committee. Then it was sent to the BMC, a parent organisation, for approval. Ac-cording to the civic officials, the proposal will come up in the group leaders’ meeting sched-uled on Monday. The civic aut-horities are optimistic to give free passes to BMC schools’ stu-dents as they come from lower strata of the society. There are estimated 4.5 lakh students studying in BMC schools across the city. Several of them use BEST buses to reach to their schools and those who cannot afford the pass just walk to sch-ools. Acco-rding to the propo-sal, the BMC has to pay to the BEST against students’ free pass. Mayor Snehal Ambekar is positive on the issue so does other group leaders. She had opined that bus pass will facili-tate students whose parents are struggling to meet both ends meet. She told reporters that education is on top agen-da of the civic body and mon-ey will not be a constraint to facilitate needs of students.