‘Industrial training institute students not eligible for free bus passes’

Thousands of students of government and government-aided schools and colleges are benefited by the free bus pass scheme, except a small section of students of the industrial training institutes’ (ITI) students.

P. Maruthi, secretary, Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya Samothi, in a memorandum to the Transport Secretary requested the issuing of free bus passes to the students, who are basically from low income background. He said their free bus passes were stopped suddenly in 2018.

Private category

Similar is the situation for most students of ITIs who are not eligible to get free bus passes as they are classified under the vocational training in private institutions category.

A senior official of the State Transport Department said students of ITIs were being denied free transport facility as most of the ITIs were privately run.

Regarding the issue of students of Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya, which was a government-aided institute, the transport official said the vocational training unit was not registered as government-aided and so the facility was stopped.

He said the representation had been forwarded to the authorities concerned for consideration.

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