Women Face Daily Threats on Vidarbha's Crumbling Public Transport System

thenewsdirt
Jul 30
7 min read

The pre-dawn darkness offers little protection for women in Vidarbha as they begin their daily commute on Maharashtra's failing public transport network.

Crowded MSRTC buses become spaces of vulnerability rather than safe passage, where illegitimate fares and rude staff behaviour mark the start of uncertain journeys. Rural roads force women to walk alone or negotiate dangerous rides with truck drivers, whilst urban buses expose passengers to sexual harassment and unwanted advances, with minimal recourse available.

The public transport system across this region consistently fails to provide security or dignity for female passengers, creating barriers that extend far beyond mere inconvenience.

This issue affects women's access to education, employment opportunities, and basic services, whilst highlighting fundamental flaws in regional transport planning that leave millions of women vulnerable to daily threats.

Rising Crime Against Women Reveals Transport Safety Crisis

Crime statistics from 2021 to 2023 reveal a disturbing upward trend in offences against women across the region. Vidarbha contributed approximately 11,000 cases to Maharashtra's total of 47,381 crimes against women in 2023, with public transport harassment forming a significant portion of these incidents.

Nagpur district alone recorded over 1,100 reported cases in 2021, with figures continuing to climb. By August 2024, the district had already documented 213 rape cases and 320 molestation incidents within just eight months.

The justice system's response has proven inadequate for addressing women's safety on public transport. Maharashtra's conviction rate for crimes against women stood at roughly 12 per cent in 2022, representing half the national average.

Court proceedings stretch across years while evidence handling remains problematic, and victims face significant social pressure to withdraw their complaints. Rural women particularly struggle with this system, as they must undertake lengthy journeys to district courts, further compounding their vulnerability to transport-related harassment.

At transport hubs across Vidarbha, women encounter specific forms of harassment that reflect broader systemic failures in ensuring passenger safety.

In Nagpur's Ganeshpeth bus stand, a man repeatedly touched women while pretending to board crowded buses.

Action only came after a local security guard recorded the incident and intervened, with no victim-initiated complaints filed. In Yavatmal district, rural schoolgirls described conductors and drivers jostling them and hurling abuse during peak hours, forcing them to approach the tehsildar for intervention.

A comprehensive 2025 survey examining the experiences of 157 rural farm widows across Akola, Amravati, Wardha and Yavatmal districts found that 68 per cent faced both connectivity challenges and harassment on public buses.

Most felt unable to report incidents due to social stigma and the absence of effective grievance mechanisms. Bus drivers and conductors rarely acknowledge or address sexual harassment, leaving women without institutional support when incidents occur on MSRTC services.

Sexual harassment on buses has become so normalised that many women consider it an inevitable part of their daily commute. The lack of proper complaint mechanisms means that incidents go unreported, creating an environment where predatory behaviour continues unchecked across the transport network.

Infrastructure Failures Leave Women Exposed to Danger

Station infrastructure across the region reveals systematic neglect of women's safety needs on public transport.

A March 2025 survey of 87 MSRTC stations spanning 20 districts identified critical failures that directly impact female passengers.

Women's toilets remain absent or non-functional at many depots, whilst nursing rooms are virtually non-existent across all stations, denying lactating mothers basic privacy and dignity during their bus journeys.

Over half the surveyed stations lack hygienic drinking water facilities, with existing purifiers frequently broken or unmaintained. Poor lighting and inadequate CCTV coverage make bus stands particularly unsafe after dusk, whilst the acute shortage of patrolling guards compounds these security concerns. Internal committees designed to handle harassment complaints simply do not exist at most locations.

These infrastructure deficits create environments where women face groping, lewd comments and more serious assaults with no immediate recourse. The absence of basic amenities forces women to plan their travel around available facilities or avoid public transport altogether, particularly during certain times of day or for longer journeys.

Rural connectivity presents even greater challenges for women's safe transport across the region. MSRTC routes bypass entire villages, forcing women into dangerous alternatives.

Between Champa and Khapri in Nagpur district, women regularly share unsafe truck rides or walk 5 to 10 kilometres on unlit roads during dawn hours because no ST buses serve this route due to poor road conditions.

Local women report that their children's school attendance suffers as a result, with girls sometimes unable to attend classes due to unsafe journey conditions.

Similar transport gaps persist throughout Wardha and Yavatmal districts. In Phanse Pardhi settlements near Yavatmal town, women walk two to three kilometres daily under extreme heat to access water sources and frequently must forgo transport to educational or health facilities to conserve limited funds for rickshaw fares when absolutely necessary.

The absence of proper bus stops with adequate lighting and security measures leaves women vulnerable to harassment and assault whilst waiting for public transport. Many rural areas lack even basic shelters, forcing women to wait in open areas where they become easy targets for unwanted attention and criminal behaviour.

Urban Transport Systems Fail to Protect Female Commuters

Urban transport systems within the region fail to provide the safety that might be expected in more developed areas. Nagpur city buses operate significantly above capacity during peak hours, creating conditions that enable predatory behaviour and general lawlessness.

Autorickshaw drivers regularly obstruct bus stops and forcibly board women at intermediate locations, contributing to an atmosphere of intimidation on public transport.

The scale of this problem becomes clear through documented incidents affecting bus safety. At least nine assaults on Aapli bus staff by autorickshaw drivers were reported in 2023 alone, highlighting the general lawlessness that affects all passengers but particularly threatens women's safety.

Female commuters consistently report frequent delays, severe overcrowding and the absence of functional complaint mechanisms on buses.

These conditions prompt many women to avoid public transport entirely, opting instead for more expensive private alternatives when available or simply limiting their mobility. The impact extends beyond individual inconvenience to affect women's participation in education, employment and community activities.

Operational shortcomings compound infrastructure problems on urban bus services. Even where buses operate, women face harassment from both passengers and transport staff.

College students describe daily experiences of jostling and inappropriate comments. Working women report having to plan routes and timing around known problematic areas or individuals.

The absence of women-only compartments or dedicated seating areas on buses means that female passengers have no safe spaces during their commute.

This forces women to develop coping strategies that often involve limiting their travel or accepting harassment as an unavoidable part of using public transport.

Government Policies Inadequate for Addressing Transport Safety

Government initiatives have attempted to address women's safety concerns but remain inadequate for the scale of challenges faced on public transport.

Maharashtra's Nirbhaya SQUAD initiative deploys mobile patrols and help desks in urban areas, yet these efforts have no equivalent within MSRTC operations in rural areas. The programme's urban focus leaves vast rural areas without targeted safety interventions.

The state launched women-only "Tejaswini" buses in 2017, but poor ridership and misalignment with peak travel hours led to services reverting to general use by 2022. The Mahila Samman Yojana provides a 50 per cent fare concession on intercity routes, but this initiative fails to address urban women's daily intracity travel needs.

Current transport operations lack basic gender-sensitive provisions for passenger safety. No women-only coaches exist on ST buses, whilst the helpline number 1800 22 1250 receives minimal publicity at depots.

MSRTC conducts no mandatory gender-sensitisation training for drivers or conductors, leaving staff unprepared to handle harassment incidents or support female passengers.

State planning under the Nirbhaya Fund has included appraisals of women's safety projects, yet bus operations lack dedicated funding for essential improvements such as CCTV installation, enhanced lighting or comprehensive station upgrades. The disconnect between policy intentions and ground-level implementation remains stark.

Personal accounts from affected women highlight the gap between official responses and daily reality on public transport. A college student from Bhivapur describes her experience: "We feel trapped. We receive lewd comments and physical jostling on our daily journey to the junior college. We begged the tehsildar for help and he promised action but nothing changed."

This testimony reflects a broader pattern where women's complaints about transport harassment receive acknowledgement but no substantive response. The absence of effective mechanisms for reporting and addressing harassment leaves women vulnerable to repeated incidents with little hope for resolution.

Anusuya Madavi, one of 21 tribal women training as ST bus drivers in Yavatmal, captures the system's contradictions: "We dream of driving buses so women can travel safely. Yet services do not reach the villages where safety is most critical."

Her observation highlights how even positive initiatives like training female drivers cannot address fundamental service gaps that leave rural women without safe transport options.

Daily Reality of Restricted Mobility for Women

The denial of safe public transport in Vidarbha creates a cascade of restrictions on women's lives across the region. Educational opportunities become limited when girls cannot safely travel to schools or colleges on buses, whilst employment prospects shrink when women cannot reliably commute to workplaces.

Healthcare access suffers when women avoid or cannot afford transport to medical facilities, and civic participation decreases when public spaces and services remain difficult to reach safely.

These restrictions operate differently across urban and rural contexts but consistently undermine women's autonomy and participation in society. Rural women face the starkest limitations, often walking long distances or forgoing activities entirely when safe transport remains unavailable.

Urban women have more alternatives, but frequently pay premium prices for private transport or restrict their movements to avoid problematic routes and times.

The economic impact extends beyond individual women to affect household and community development. When women cannot access employment, education or business opportunities due to transport barriers, entire families and communities lose potential income and development. The cycle perpetuates itself as reduced economic participation limits women's ability to advocate for improved services or seek alternative solutions.

Current conditions at Vidarbha leave women navigating complex calculations about risk, cost and necessity with every journey they contemplate on public transport. These daily decisions, multiplied across thousands of women throughout the region, represent a significant restriction on human mobility and opportunity that extends far beyond transport policy into fundamental questions of equality and development.

The lack of safe and reliable public transport options forces women to make compromises that men rarely face, limiting their freedom of movement and access to opportunities. This creates a cycle where women's participation in public life becomes increasingly restricted, perpetuating gender inequality across all sectors of society.