During the needs assessment drive in the districts of Tonk and Sawai Modhapur, the denial of the previously instituted 75% bus travel concession to access ART without any significant reasons was brought to the attention of the Project Svavritti team by PLHIV. The community members also expressed their unwillingness to utilize the bus concession due to multiple episodes of the non-consensual disclosure of their HIV status by the conductors in the public transport.
The project team decided to address the issues and hence, organized demand generation meetings in both the districts in which the community members expressed and shared their challenges and expectation. The community members recommended that the term ‘PLHIV’ be replaced with “Immuno Compromised” in the travel concession card. This recommendation was presented by project staff to the Chief Managers of Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation in Tonk and Sawai Madhopur and was approved. An office order was issued to implement the same with immediate effect. Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (RSRTC) took lead role in orienting the drivers about the format and the community members began to avail the benefit without the fear of disclosure of their HIV status.
After a month of implementation, Rajasthan State AIDS Control Society (RSACS) informed Project Svavritti’s Program Officer that RSRTC had banned all types of bus pass formats related to PLHIV in all the 34 districts of Rajasthan. There was no written evidence stating the same but the project is following up regularly on the new order and advocating on the same.
An encouraging aspect in the sequence of events is that the Chief Manager of Sawai Madhopur has decided to continue to provide the travel concession to PLHIV in the absence of any written communication from the state authorities.