Navi Mumbai: 85-year-old senior citizen Amritrao Joshi has launched a ‘Ghantanad Andolan’ (bell-ringing protest) outside the Navi Mumbai and Panvel Municipal Corporation offices, demanding 100% bus fare concession for senior citizens travelling across the entire jurisdiction of both civic bodies.
At present, the fare concession for senior citizens is restricted only to the municipal area corresponding to the address mentioned on their Aadhaar card. Joshi has termed this policy discriminatory and inconvenient for senior citizens who often need to travel across municipal limits. He has strongly demanded that the entire Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) be treated as a unified travel zone, allowing senior citizens to avail full fare exemption in NMMT and BEST buses across all areas, regardless of their residential address.
To highlight this demand, Joshi began his ‘Ghantanad Andolan’ outside the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) headquarters on Monday and Tuesday. He plans to continue the protest outside the Panvel Municipal Corporation (PMC) office on Wednesday and Thursday.Joshi has also alleged that despite making repeated requests on Monday, he was denied an opportunity to meet the NMMC Commissioner. " I was subjected to improper behavior by the security staff at the civic headquarters, despite being a senior citizen," said the citizen.
Joshi argued that providing a 100% fare concession to senior citizens would not result in a significant financial burden on the municipal transport bodies, which otherwise spend crores of rupees on various projects. Supporting his protest, the Sajag Nagrik Manch (Vigilant Citizens Forum) has appealed to both NMMC and PMC Commissioners to jointly consider the genuine demands of senior citizens and take a positive decision in this regard.
"His ongoing protest has drawn attention to the difficulties faced by senior citizens in availing travel concessions and has sparked fresh debate on the need for a uniform fare policy across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, " said a member from the Manch.
