Students and senior citizens had to face a sudden crunch in their daily expenses as city bus cancelled the use of their commuting pass this week. Reasoning it to the Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct (MCC), ticket vendors asked them buy tickets for every trip since Sunday. Troubled by this change, pass-holding students and senior citizens wondered about their investment in cards. Being dependent on their savings and parents for cash flow, students and senior citizens could not afford to lose their prior investments in passes and further paying for tickets in every trip.
While senior citizens just avoided their leisure trips and paid for the essential ones, students discussed the problem among themselves in colleges and universities. Most students had passes that were valid till end of the month. They floated the issue among other colleagues and requested advice from professors.
Learning about the problem, chief executive officer of Atal Indore City Transport Service Limited (AiCTSL) Sandeep Soni resolved the problem with instructions from higher ups. “Due to lack of clarity in instructions to Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct, we had cancelled all the passes till elections. Looking at the problem caused to commuters, we will be allowing use of old passes till their validity. However, no new passes would be issued till Dec 11 following the conduct,” Soni said. The same was floated by the mayor in her statement.
