Thiruvananthapuram: Former transport minister K B Ganesh Kumar on Monday welcomed state govt’s Priyadarshini scheme offering free travel for women on KSRTC buses, while urging govt to extend similar benefits to male students.Addressing a news conference, Kumar said the scheme was part of UDF’s election manifesto and govt was duty-bound to implement it. However, student concessions should be gender-neutral, he said.“In case of students, there should be no distinction between boys and girls. Free travel should be extended to male students also,” he said. He called for an inquiry into allegations that ordinary KSRTC services were being converted into city fast services, potentially reducing benefits available under the free travel scheme.Kumar strongly rejected allegations of irregularities in KSRTC bus purchases during his tenure, describing reports of a procurement scam as “false and fabricated.” He said bus procurement decisions in KSRTC weren’t taken by the minister alone but involved officials and committees within the corporation.He said misinformation was being spread through forged documents and accused media of publishing unverified reports. KSRTC purchased air-suspension Super Fast buses for around Rs 21 lakh each and spring-suspension fast passenger buses for about Rs 20 lakh each, he said.Refuting claims that KSRTC had overpaid by several lakhs per bus, he said KSRTC never purchased buses for Rs 30 lakh as alleged in some reports. “The two-phase procurement process actually benefited KSRTC financially,” he said, demanding an investigation into the origin of the alleged fake documents.Kumar urged govt to conduct a detailed probe and called on media to identify the source of the documents. He said he convened the news conference to counter what he described as a deliberate misinformation campaign and to defend previous Left govt’s record.
