Three years after it reshaped how millions of women move across Karnataka, the state's flagship Shakti scheme has crossed a cumulative expenditure of ₹14,875 crore — a figure the Chief Minister's Office of Karnataka announced on Independence Day, 15 August 2026, framing the milestone as freedom of a different kind: freedom from the cost of getting somewhere.

The post, shared in both Kannada and English, declared the scheme is advancing 'ಸ್ತ್ರೀ ಸಬಲೀಕರಣಕ್ಕೆ' ('women's empowerment') by enabling women to 'travel with greater freedom and participate more fully in education, employment and everyday life.' The Independence Day timing was deliberate — linking mobility to the larger promise of self-determination.

What Shakti actually does — and who it reaches

Launched in June 2023 by the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government as a centrepiece of its first state budget, the Shakti scheme provides free travel for women on Karnataka's state-run buses. The beneficiaries are specific and concrete: the college student who can now commute daily without calculating fare, the garment worker who pockets what she once spent on transport, the woman making a hospital visit she might otherwise have skipped.

Unlike comparable programmes in Delhi, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana — which extended subsidies to metro networks or private operators — Karnataka's model is anchored entirely in the state road transport corporations, making it most relevant in semi-urban and rural corridors where buses remain the primary mode of public transit.

A national pattern, a Karnataka price tag

The gender-targeted public transport subsidy is now a well-established policy instrument across Indian states. Beginning around 2019, several governments moved to address two overlapping problems at once: the safety concerns that discourage women from using public transit, and the stubborn gap in female labour-force participation. Karnataka's version is among the most expensive in absolute terms, with the ₹14,875 crore figure signalling both the scheme's scale and the state's fiscal commitment.

What independent evaluations of actual ridership growth or workforce impact look like — whether the spending has meaningfully shifted commuting patterns or employment numbers — will be a key question when Karnataka's 2026-27 budget documents are scrutinised.

For now, the number stands as a statement: in three years, Karnataka has spent more on women's mobility than most states spend on entire transport budgets. The question the next audit must answer is whether that investment is moving the needle — not just moving passengers.