Roadways Starts Three-Day Free Bus Travel for Women from Varanasi This Morning

Uttar Pradesh Roadways has started three-day free travel for women from Varanasi this morning. The window opened at 6 am on Thursday, 27 August 2026, and runs through midnight on Saturday, 29 August. One attendant travelling with a woman is also eligible. Conductors are to issue a zero-rupee ticket.

The facility sits on a state government order for 27, 28 and 29 August, covering Raksha Bandhan on Friday. In the Varanasi parikshetra, regional manager Parshuram Pandey has already directed officers to run the concession across the fleet under him. More than 500 buses operate in that region. Women may travel in any class from Varanasi to Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Prayagraj and other Uttar Pradesh destinations.

The practical instruction at the counter is the zero-rupee ticket. Eligibility is the woman passenger plus one attendant. Additional companions pay full fare. That limit is the state rule as applied here; it is not a Varanasi-only tweak. Pandey’s direction to officers is the local implementation of the same order, not a separate scheme.

Thursday 6 am was the start, not a later festival-eve opening. Anyone waiting until Friday morning is already inside a window that has been live since dawn. The close is midnight on 29 August — the night after Raksha Bandhan — not last service on the festival day itself. That extra night is part of the published span.

Destinations named with the Varanasi briefing are the usual long-haul set from this depot cluster: Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Prayagraj, plus other UP points. Any class of Roadways bus is covered in the same note. The 500-plus buses are the Varanasi parikshetra count attached to Pandey’s direction.

Festival weeks fill the Varanasi bus stand early. The concession does not by itself add a published extra-trip table for this parikshetra. What it does is take the fare off the woman and one attendant on the buses already under the regional manager, for 66 hours from Thursday morning to Saturday night. Passengers still need a ticket in hand. The ticket is priced at zero.

Pandey’s instruction to officers is the enforcement line: counters open to the concession, conductors print the zero-rupee ticket, the 500-plus buses in the region treat the order as in force from 6 am. A conductor refusing the free ticket would be an operations issue against that direction, not a gap in the published dates.

The dates in force, and the ones Pandey’s direction implements, are 6 am 27 August to midnight 29 August.

For women leaving Kashi toward Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur or Prayagraj this morning, the news is already operational. The Roadways window is open, the attendant can ride free with them, and the conductor’s zero-rupee ticket is the paper that makes the concession real until midnight on Saturday.