With colleges reopening, the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has begun the process of issuing bus pass to students. For now, students are being allowed to travel between their residences and educational institutions using last year’s pass.
BMTC Managing Director C. Shikha told The Hindu that students will have to apply for the pass online. What is new under the present pandemic circumstances is that they will have to collect their pass from BangaloreOne centres.
“For the time being, students are being allowed to use BMTC buses using last year’s pass. Now the online application system is being opened. Once they apply, they will be given time slots to collect their pass from BangaloreOne centres to ensure there is no crowding. This way, they will have the option of collecting it from a centre near their residences,” Ms. Shikha said.
As for the pass rate, the BMTC will have a discussion with the Education Department to see how many months are left for colleges to fix the rate, she added.
The online process had been riddled with glitches in the past, the first time in 2018 to take it online and deliver the smart cards to individual homes. There were complaints of software glitches, wrong entry of information and photos by students as well as non- cooperation from educational institutions, forcing thousands of students to queue up at Majestic bus stand for hours to get their pass. As many students were left without pass even after classes began, the Chief Minister stepped in asking BMTC to take corrective action. The following year, BMTC decided not to deliver passes to the residence of students. Instead, it established 92 centres where students could apply for pass.
