Bengaluru warns BMTC conductors against asking passengers to get off over change: Transport minister faced the same during a surprise ride; UPI to be offered

A BMTC conductor will likely not forget the passenger he asked to get off his bus last Saturday night for not carrying exact change. That passenger was Karnataka's transport minister.

Bengaluru's bus operator has since issued a sharp warning to all its drivers and conductors, directing them to treat passengers with respect and stop turning people away over change-related disputes.

What BMTC said after the incident


BMTC managing director Raghunandan Murthy has directed all drivers and conductors to treat passengers with courtesy, according to a statement issued following the incident. The transport body made clear that deboarding or denying travel to any passenger on account of a lack of change will not be tolerated, as per TOI.

Conductors have been directed to ask passengers to use the UPI payment facility available through dynamic QR scanning on ETM machines installed across the fleet, as an alternative to cash.

The MD also directed all divisional controllers to urgently identify bus shelters that are not currently reflected as designated stops in ETM machines and report them. Drivers and conductors who frequently appear in public complaints will be sent for soft skills training at the Vaddarahalli training centre. Those who receive praise from passengers, on the other hand, will be recognised with a certificate of appreciation from the head office.

What happened on Saturday night

The chain of events that prompted all of this began on Saturday evening, when minister Byrathi Suresh wore a surgical mask and boarded a BMTC bus as an ordinary commuter for a surprise reality check of the city's public transport services, the Times of India reported.

Travelling between 7.10pm and 9.10pm, the minister covered routes spanning Jayamahal, TV Tower, RT Nagar, CBI Road, Hebbal, Manyata Tech Park, Nagawara, Hennur, Hennur Bande, Byrathi Bande, and Geddalahalli.

At one point, he boarded a bus from Hebbal to Nagashettihalli and asked the conductor for two tickets, handing over a Rs 100 note. The conductor asked for exact change. When the minister said he did not have any, the conductor showed his cash bag, indicated he too was short on change, and told the minister to get off if he could not pay the exact fare, TOI reported.

The minister, still unidentified, got off without a word.

The autorickshaw that charged more than the meter

The bus was not the only problem the minister encountered that night. He also briefly took an autorickshaw from Nagashettihalli, where the meter read Rs 30 but the driver demanded Rs 36. When questioned, the driver reportedly told the minister the meter would be recalibrated. The minister paid Rs 40 and got off, according to TOI.

The inspection was intended as a ground-level assessment of the problems Bengaluru's daily commuters deal with routinely. On this particular Saturday, the minister experienced several of them firsthand.

(With TOI inputs)