Fare Fortress

The Maharashtra government’s decision to regulate school bus fares arrives couched in the language of safety, accountability and parental convenience. GPS tracking, CCTV access, panic buttons, digital attendance and fare oversight are all welcome measures. For years, parents have had little bargaining power against private school transport operators, who have often functioned in a regulatory grey zone.

But buried beneath the promise of reform lies a more uncomfortable question: will regulation protect parents, or merely formalise a lucrative business model?

School transport in Mumbai, as in other cities in the state, has evolved into a money-making machine. The bus ride has become an annual revenue stream. Parents are routinely charged full-year fees even though schools operate for barely nine or ten months after accounting for summer vacations, Diwali breaks, Christmas holidays, public holidays and examination periods. The vehicle may sit idle for weeks, but the meter, in effect, keeps running.

This peculiar arrangement would be unacceptable in almost any other sector. A commuter does not pay a railway season ticket when trains are not running. A tenant does not pay additional rent because a building remains accessible during holidays. A consumer does not pay a restaurant for meals that were never served. Yet school transport has created its own economic universe where absence of service does not necessarily mean absence of payment.

The new rules empower Regional Transport Authorities to fix a base fare per kilometre per student, with operators allowed only a limited deviation. That is a step towards transparency. But the larger issue remains unresolved: how will fares be calculated? Will authorities consider the actual number of operational school days, or will they simply legitimise the existing practice of charging families for twelve months?

The danger is that regulation could become a shield rather than a restraint. Once a government-approved fare structure exists, operators may gain a stronger justification for collections that have long been questioned by parents. A regulated monopoly is not necessarily a fair one.

Parents are not investors in a transport company. They are paying customers purchasing a specific service: carrying their children to and from school.

Schools, too, cannot escape scrutiny. Many institutions outsource transport but remain deeply involved in the ecosystem. If the new rules are serious about accountability, schools must disclose transport agreements, cost structures and the basis on which annual charges are calculated.

While safety reforms are overdue, it cannot become a convenient justification for unchecked costs. The government’s challenge is not merely to regulate buses. It must regulate the economics behind them. A school bus should be a public necessity, not a captive market where parents pay premium prices because they have no alternative. Families should pay for the service they receive, not for the months when the bus remains parked.