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BMTC

CAFC meetings recently and transgender employees after reservation

19/05/2025

  1. Please provide the calendar dates of all meetings of the Commuter Advisory and Facilitation Committee CAFC since 01.01.2023.

  2. Please provide the minutes of meetings MoM, or summary or outcome report for all meetings listed in the reply of point 1 above.

  3. Please provide the head count and designation of transgender people employed by the BMTC in any job role whatsoever.

23/05/2025

1. & 2. From 01.01.2023 till now, the meeting of the Consumer Advisory Committee has not been organized at the head office level of the BMTC and there are no proceedings.

3. The matter of transgender staff is related to the administrative branch and the application seeking information under the Act, 2005 has been forwarded to the administrative department under Section 6(3).

19/06/2025 Administrative Department

3. No transgender persons have been appointed to any position in the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation.

CAFC meetings ever

20/06/2025

  1. Please provide all dates of CAFC committee meetings since its inception.

  2. Please provide the agenda and minutes of the meetings and outcomes of the meetings listed in the reply of point 1.

  3. Please provide the full website url link where the reply information of point 1 and 2 is available publicly.

01/07/2025

The information requested is overwhelming. Due to the volume, please come to this office during office hours on 16.07.2025 to inspect the files and provide copies of the information under the Right to Information Act.

Due to the anticipated Kannada language documents, I didn't inspect the documents. Further, due to the lack of recent CAFC meetings, the information would be outdated anyway.

Bus priority lane, pop-up lanes, card-less cash-less payments, last mile connectivity partnerships and Namma BMTC app promotion

20/06/2025

  1. Please provide any documents, proposals, consultations, expression of intent, ideas, or studies dated after 01.01.2022 regarding BMTC bus priority lane, its implementation or feasibility.

  2. Please provide any documents, proposals, consultations, expression of intent, ideas, or studies dated after 01.01.2022 regarding popup lanes or painting exclusivity/ priority warnings on the road in front of BMTC bus stops.

  3. Please provide any documents, proposals, consultations, expression of intent, ideas, or studies dated after 01.01.2022 regarding card-less and cashless ticket payments in BMTC buses. The intent was expressed by the BMTC MD Mr Ramachandran R in an interview with Elets News Network (ENN) on the date 20.07.2024 quoted

    One of our major initiatives is the implementation of the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC). We envision moving beyond even the need for physical cards. Almost everyone carries a mobile phone, so we aim to facilitate mobile-based payments. We aim to eliminate the need for any physical cards, allowing people to walk in and out of transport systems seamlessly. Similar to how FASTag works at toll plazas, GPS- based ticketing systems automatically calculate fares based on where passengers board and alight from the bus, deducting the fare from their account without human intervention.

    https://egov.eletsonline.com/2024/07/bmtcs-journey-towards-cashless-contactless-public-transport/

  4. Please provide any documents, proposals, consultations, expression of intent, ideas, or studies dated after 01.01.2022 regarding increasing last mile connectivity in streets using partnerships or incentivisation schemes with private autos or e-rikshas etc.

  5. Please provide the documents and scheme details dated after 01.01.2024 regarding increasing adoption of Namma bmtc app both inside the bus (via posters, conductor incentivisation, speaker announcements etc.,) and outside the bus (posters on the bus, banners on bus stops etc).

Translation Needed. See contact me

01/07/2025

  1. Traffic police ???? 15.11.2019 The buses of the BMC are operated under Bus Priority Lane (BPL). Further, the BMTC has not issued any government-level orders regarding Bus Priority Lane (BPL).

    Reply

  2. No orders in this regard are available in this office.

  3. The query has been forwarded to the Computer Department under Section 6(3) of the RTI Act 2005.

  4. There is no proposal in the office about it.

  5. The application submitted has been forwarded to the Computer Department under Section 6(3).

16/07/2025 Rejected by Systems Department

3. and 5. Reason for Rejection :- Section 8(1)(d). Remarks:-

❓ 16/07/2025 Appeal

Appeal for point 5: the applicant requested details of the namma bmtc app promotion and adoption scheme or advertisements. If any posters or banners or speaker announcements were made public already, they cannot be protected with RTI act sec 8.1.d. If any conductor incentive scheme was implemented, the entirety of the scheme document should not be protected by the PIO. Merely providing the start-end dates or outcome of such scheme etc., will not hurt the competitive position of BMTC. The larger public interest of the instant RTI is to find out the efforts BMTC has taken to ensure that the magnificent namma bmtc app gets used by the passengers to obtain correct stop, route and live information.

22/07/2025 Appeal reply

Requested To submit Application CSM, FAA, System Department, BMTC

App corrections, route change and Namma BMTC app open-source

20/06/2025

  1. Please provide the mechanism of reporting incorrect route or bus stop information on the Namma BMTC app to the BMTC authority.
  2. Please provide the mechanism of requesting bus route changes or bus stop changes to the BMTC authority.
  3. Please provide any proposals, documents, consultations etc. regarding making the source code of the namma BMTC android or iOS app open (publicly available) and collectively improvable by volunteer developers.

21/06/2025:

  1. Concerns can be raised in Play Store comments or write mail to [supervisorsits aaattt mybmtc dddooottt com]. BMTC team will take necessary measure to rectify the incorrect route or bus stop.

  2. Request can be made to traffic section of BMTC, Central office, Shantingara. After thorough survey, needful measures will be taken.

  3. Source code is not publicly available.

❓ 22/06/2025 Appeal

3. Appeal for point 3, to clarify, it requests whether there exist any proposals to convert the apps into open-source mode. Please provide any proposals, documents, consultations etc. regarding making the source code of the Namma BMTC android or iOS app open (publicly available) and collectively improvable by volunteer developers. Thanks for the prompt response on the RTI.

01/07/2025 Appeal Hearing Summary

Participants:

  • First Appellate authority, the Chief System Manager (CSM): Mr. Sadananda K G,
  • System Manager (SM): Raghavendra Kumar M J,
  • Deputy System Manager (DSM): Smt Priyanka A,
  • Assistant Mechanical Engineer (AME): Mr Ananda M B (the PIO)
  • An officer for transcription of the proceedings: Smt unknown.

Paraphrasing of the conversation:

  • CSM: Why do you want the source code?
  • Me: There are many issues which the developers in Bengaluru can fix and improve the app.
  • CSM: We don't want anybody else to improve the app. We will carry this app project for 3-4 years as long as the contract is valid. That will be a big enough achievement for us. We are not looking for anything more than that.
  • Me: .....
  • CSM: Further, releasing the code can cause user privacy issues.
  • Me: Open source doesn't cause that.
  • CSM: Releasing the [app] source code can cause issues in the server where the service is hosted in the central Karnataka server.
  • Me: Client code is different and doesn't affect the server. Many good and secure things are open source already like the Android, Chrome, Firefox that you're using. You can even monetize it by licensing it to other bus corporations in the country.
  • CSM: This is our property. [smiles] Why should we share or give it away or sell it? We don't want to do it.
  • Me: So it's a willpower issue?
  • CSM: [leans back] No no.. it's not a willpower issue.
  • AME: The app is under a contract basis with a third party and we will not have the code for the next 3-4 years. Only after the contract expires will we get the code and the knowledge transfer.
  • Transcriptionist: Why don't you build a different and a better app ? Why do you need our source code?

  • Me: A teenager tried in 2019 and you blocked his app by taking the APIs private, and asked him to be a bidder in the tender and take on the entire app responsibility.

    https://linkedin.com/in/nihar1024

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/bmtc-shows-door-to-teen-whose-bus-app-a-hit-among-passengers/articleshow/70111155.cms

  • AME: yes yes I remember this story. He had probably hacked our system. Because he was a kid, we only called him and his father to this office and did not take any legal action against him.

  • DSM [comes in and gets the context]: [chitchat]
  • CSM: This is our DSM. She's the technical person. I am a non-technical system manager.
  • DSM: So do you want to contribute and participate in the development of this app?
  • Me: If it were open source, I would do it for free.
  • DSM: There is a contract with the vendor which doesn't have any such exit clause. If we had the code, we would definitely have done it.
  • Me: Understood.
  • Me to transcriptionist: Please reject the appeal under RTI section 8 1 d.

01/07/2025:

3. Enquiry was called on 01.07.2025 at 14.30Hrs in the chambers of First Appellate Authority. Both the Appellant and the defendent[sic] were present for the enquiry. PIO informed that, since it comes under the intellectual property, copyrights and commercial confidence, as per 8(1)(d) of the RTI 2005, the source code cannot be given. The First Appeallate[sic] Authority agreed for the same and the enquiry was disposed [of].

BMTC ridership after Karnataka Bike Taxi Ban (Rapido, Uber, Ola, etc.)

12/07/2025

  1. Please provide the monthly aggregate bus ridership numbers for the operational routes from January 2025 to May 2025. In case the data is readily segregated by route numbers, it may be still be provided as is.
  2. Please provide the daily aggregate bus ridership numbers for all days of June 2025 in a similar fashion as point 1.

11/08/2025 BMTC, Traffic Operation, Central Office

Month Monthly Passengers
Jan-25 12,58,85,738
Feb-25 11,57,02,396
Mar-25 12,36,72,886
Apr-25 12,09,57,436
May-25 12,57,48,707
[Jun-25] [12,63,80,985]

Scanned with OKEN Scanner

June-2025 Daily Passengers
01-June 33,08,198
02-June 44,42,759
03-June 44,53,965
04-June 43,52,369
05-June 44,32,658
06-June 43,57,876
07-June 35,29,984
08-June 31,24,994
09-June 43,47,176
10-June 44,12,701
11-June 44,58,162
12-June 43,75,028
13-June 43,75,992
14-June 42,10,014
15-June 32,46,810
16-June 44,15,617
17-June 45,04,558
18-June 45,51,754
19-June 44,29,166
20-June 44,60,284
21-June 43,48,787
22-June 33,48,701
23-June 44,87,743
24-June 45,15,686
25-June 45,20,969
26-June 45,45,839
27-June 45,92,516
28-June 43,62,114
29-June 33,96,007
30-June 44,72,558
Total 12,63,80,985

Scanned with OKEN Scanner

Charts that I made:

Ridership vs. Date.svg

Ridership vs. Month with avg Ridership / days in month vs. Month with avg