Shakti Scheme (Karnataka)

What is the Shakti scheme?

Shakti is the free bus travel guarantee of the Government of Karnataka, implemented by the Transport Department through the state's four road transport corporations. Shakti allows women and transgender persons domiciled in Karnataka to travel free of charge on ordinary and express services within the state. The scheme was announced on 2 June 2023 and began operating on 11 June 2023, making it the first of Karnataka's five guarantees to reach the public.

Shakti is delivered by:

• KSRTC, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, intercity services
• BMTC; Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation, city services in Bengaluru
• NWKRTC, North Western Karnataka Road Transport Corporation
• KKRTC, Kalyana Karnataka Road Transport Corporation

By mid-2026 the scheme had recorded more than 500 crore free trips since launch, with an estimated 55 to 60 lakh women travelling free every day. The scale is what makes Shakti unusual: it is not a targeted subsidy for a small group but a universal entitlement for roughly half the state's population, limited only by domicile and by the class of bus.

Who is eligible for the Shakti scheme?

You can travel free if:

• You are a woman or a transgender person.
• You are domiciled in Karnataka, and can prove it with a photo ID carrying a Karnataka address.
• You are travelling within Karnataka, from origin to destination.
• You board a covered service. An ordinary or express bus of KSRTC, NWKRTC or KKRTC, or a Bengaluru Sarige, Astra or non-air-conditioned Metro Feeder service of BMTC.

There is no age limit, no income ceiling, no caste condition and no ration card requirement. A schoolgirl, a daily wage worker, a software engineer and a pensioner are equally entitled.

You are not eligible, and cannot claim free travel, if:

• You are a man. Shakti does not extend to male passengers of any age.
• You cannot establish Karnataka domicile. A woman visiting from another state pays the normal fare.
• You board a premium or air-conditioned service — these are excluded by design, whoever you are.
• You are on an interstate service, even if you alight inside Karnataka. A woman travelling from Bengaluru towards Kerala who gets off at a Karnataka stop still buys a ticket.
• You are travelling on a private bus, a metro train or a suburban rail service. Shakti covers state road transport corporation buses only.

Which buses does Shakti cover, and which are excluded?

The dividing line is straightforward once you see it: non-premium, non-AC, intra-state. Anything sold as a luxury, sleeper, club-class or air-conditioned product falls outside the scheme, and so does anything crossing the state border.

The NICE Road toll deserves its own note because it causes recurring disputes at the door. The fare is waived; the road toll of roughly Rs 25 is not a fare, it is a charge levied by the road operator, and the passenger pays it.

What documents are required for Shakti?

How to apply for and use the Shakti scheme

Shakti has no application form standing between a woman and a free ride. The practical steps are:

1. Carry a government-issued photo identity card showing a Karnataka address, Aadhaar is the simplest, because it proves identity and domicile in one document.
2. Board any eligible bus of KSRTC, BMTC, NWKRTC or KKRTC. Check the service class first; a premium or air-conditioned bus will charge you.
3. Show the ID to the conductor and ask for the Shakti ticket.
4. Collect the zero-fare ticket. The conductor issues a ticket showing zero fare, which is the record of your journey and the corporation's claim against the state subsidy. Keep it until you alight; travelling without it counts as travelling ticketless.
5. Apply for a Shakti smart card through the Seva Sindhu platform if you want faster boarding. The card was introduced after the initial phase in which conductors verified photo IDs directly.

How to get a Shakti smart card

1. Open the Seva Sindhu guarantee services platform and select the Shakti smart card service, or visit a Grama One, Karnataka One or Bangalore One centre.
2. Provide your Aadhaar number and complete OTP authentication on the Aadhaar-linked mobile number.
3. Submit the Karnataka address proof and a photograph as prompted.
4. Collect the card, or receive it at the address given, and carry it in place of the photo ID on future journeys.

The smart card is a convenience, not a condition. During the first three months of the scheme, conductors issued zero-fare tickets on the strength of photo ID and address proof alone, and that fallback remains the practical route for anyone without a card.

How is Shakti paid for?

Shakti is not free to the state. Each zero-fare ticket is a claim by the road transport corporation against the Transport Department, reimbursed from the state budget. That is why the zero-fare ticket matters operationally: it is the audit trail on which the corporations are paid, which is why conductors insist on issuing one even though no money changes hands.

The mechanism also explains the exclusions. Premium classes are the corporations' main source of commercial revenue, and keeping them outside Shakti lets the corporations cross-subsidise the fare-free ordinary services.

Common problems and how to resolve them

• Conductor refuses a zero-fare ticket because the ID does not show a Karnataka address. Carry Aadhaar with a Karnataka address; a PAN card alone does not establish domicile.
• Boarding a premium service by mistake. Airavat, Ambaari, Rajahamsa Executive and BMTC's Vajra services are not covered, check the board before boarding.
• Interstate service confusion. The exclusion follows the service, not your destination. Ask at the counter whether the bus is an interstate schedule.
• NICE Road toll demanded. This is correct and is not a violation of the scheme.
• No seat available. Free travel is an entitlement to travel, not to a seat. The existing reservation of seats for women continues to apply.
• Ticketless travel penalty. A woman who does not take the zero-fare ticket can be treated as travelling without a ticket even though the fare is nil. Always take the ticket.

Where to complain about Shakti

• Guarantee schemes call centre: 1902, listed on sevasindhu.karnataka.gov.in.
• KSRTC customer service on 080-26252625, and the depot manager at the depot the bus belongs to, for conductor conduct and refusal of a zero-fare ticket.
• BMTC depot and divisional offices for Bengaluru city services.
• Transport Department, Government of Karnataka, for policy questions such as which classes of service are covered.

Shakti costs nothing. No agent can charge to enrol you, no smart card fee is payable to any middleman, and no conductor may demand money for a zero-fare ticket.

How to check your Shakti application status

Free travel itself has nothing to track: there is no application, no queue and no approval step, so a woman or transgender passenger who simply shows a photo ID at the bus door has no "status" to check. The only thing with an actual processing pipeline is the Shakti smart card, applied for through Seva Sindhu, and that is what the checks below cover.

If you applied for the smart card online, through Seva Sindhu:

1. Log in at the Seva Sindhu guarantee services portal with the same mobile number and credentials used at the time of application.
2. Open "View Status" or "Track Application" and enter the application reference number generated when you submitted the request.
3. The portal shows one of a small set of states: submitted, under verification, approved and dispatched, or returned for correction. A "returned" status means a document did not pass verification and you need to resubmit.

If you applied at Grama One, Karnataka One or Bangalore One:

1. Keep the acknowledgement slip handed to you at the counter; it carries the application number.
2. Call the centre directly, or the guarantee schemes helpline on 1902, and quote the acknowledgement number to get a verbal status update.
3. If the card has been dispatched, the centre can confirm the expected delivery window; there is no separate courier tracking number for citizens.

If you only ever used the zero-fare ticket and never applied for a card, there is nothing to check: continue boarding with your photo ID, since the smart card is optional and its absence does not affect your entitlement to free travel.

Common reasons for rejection

A Shakti "rejection" almost never means the free-travel entitlement itself is denied; the entitlement follows from being a Karnataka-domiciled woman or transgender person and cannot be refused on discretionary grounds. What actually gets rejected, or refused at the point of service, falls into two separate buckets.

Smart card applications get returned or rejected for these reasons:

• Address on the ID does not match a Karnataka address. An Aadhaar card still showing a previous state's address, or an ID with no address printed on it at all, fails domicile verification. The fix is to update the Aadhaar address to the current Karnataka residence before reapplying, or to submit a separate, valid Karnataka address proof alongside it.
• Aadhaar number not linked to the mobile number used for OTP. The Seva Sindhu application depends on OTP authentication; if the mobile number on file with UIDAI is outdated or unregistered, the OTP never arrives and the application stalls. Update the mobile number with Aadhaar first, then reapply.
• Photograph unclear or does not match the ID photo. A photo taken in poor light, cropped incorrectly, or clearly of a different person than the ID leads to manual rejection during verification. Resubmit a plain, well-lit photograph that matches the applicant.
• Duplicate application. Applying more than once, at both Seva Sindhu online and a Karnataka One centre for instance, can leave one copy stuck as a duplicate. Check status before reapplying, and cancel or wait out the first application rather than filing a third.
• Gender marker mismatch. Since eligibility depends on being recorded as a woman or transgender person, an ID where the gender field is blank, illegible or inconsistent across submitted documents can trigger a hold. Carry a document where the gender field is legible and consistent.

Zero-fare tickets get refused at the door for these reasons, which is a service-level refusal rather than a bureaucratic rejection, but functions the same way for the passenger:

• No Karnataka address on the ID shown. A PAN card, which carries no address, is routinely refused as proof of domicile even though it is a valid photo ID for other purposes; carry Aadhaar, a voter ID or a driving licence instead.
• ID does not clearly show it belongs to the passenger. A worn, laminated-over or photocopied ID that a conductor cannot verify at a glance is grounds for refusal; carry the original document.
• Boarding a premium or excluded service such as Airavat, Ambaari, Rajahamsa Executive or an air-conditioned BMTC Vajra service; no ID or proof changes this, since these categories sit outside the scheme by design regardless of who is travelling.