Panic not, passes aren’t fake

BANGALORE: Stand your ground the next time your bus conductor asks you to leave the bus for having a fake daily pass. It may actually not be a fake. Some features of the pass that are constantly changed to maintain security have not been intimated to the conductors causing confusion. Thus ignorant conductors are led to believe that genuine passes are fakes.
Daily passes were recently introduced as a customer-friendly initiative by the BMTC.They can be used for travelling in any bus for the entire day. Almost 6,000 daily passes are issued everyday and revenue is an approximate Rs 12 lakh per day.
SBI salesman Kurian Francis bought his daily pass on March 18 from the bus conductor of 300H (Banaswadi to Majestic). He travelled by five buses that day. All the conductors accepted the daily pass. It was only in the last bus, when Francis was returning home, that the conductor took one look at the pass and stamped it ‘fake’. The reason: he was used to seeing a circular monogram on the top left hand corner, while Francis’ pass had a square monogram. He was asked to get off the bus.
BMTC managing director Upendra Tripathy said the change in the shape of the monogram is because of a change of printing press. While it was in Manipal earlier, now it’s the Hyderabad Press which prints a square monogram.“We have certain features that cannot be broadcast for security reasons. But we will issue a circular to conductors informing them of the security features everytime we change them,� Tripathy said.