Mahalakshmi Scheme: Digital Travel Limit System

Abstract

The Mahalakshmi Scheme is a welfare initiative introduced to provide free public transportation for women, aimed at improving accessibility, safety, and social inclusion. However, the existing manual and semi-digital methods suffer from challenges such as identity misuse, lack of real-time tracking, manual verification errors, and inefficient monitoring of travel limits. To overcome these limitations, this paper proposes a secure and intelligent Digital Bus Pass Management System that automates beneficiary registration, travel validation, and monitoring using modern web and mobile technologies. The proposed system enables female beneficiaries to register using Aadhaar-based identity verification and mobile OTP authentication, ensuring authenticity and eliminating duplicate entries. Upon successful registration, a unique Mahalakshmi ID along with a QR code is generated for each beneficiary. Conductors use a dedicated application to scan the QR code, validate user credentials, and record journey details such as source, destination, and travel distance. The system automatically calculates the traveled distance and enforces a monthly free travel limit, beyond which fare calculation is performed dynamically. A centralized backend manages real-time data processing, maintains travel history, and supports administrative monitoring. The admin dashboard provides insights into beneficiary usage, conductor activity, total distance traveled, and revenue generated from excess travel. Security mechanisms such as role-based access control, encrypted data storage, and authenticated QR validation ensure data integrity and prevent fraudulent usage. The proposed solution enhances transparency, efficiency, and accountability in public transport management while reducing manual workload and operational errors. By integrating mobile applications, cloud-based services, and automated analytics, the system provides a scalable and reliable digital infrastructure for effective implementation of the Mahalakshmi Scheme and serves as a model for smart governance in public transportation systems.

Introduction

Public transportation is crucial for economic growth and social inclusion, and in India, schemes like the Mahalakshmi Scheme provide free bus travel for women to improve safety, accessibility, and independence. However, traditional manual and semi-digital systems suffer from issues such as identity misuse, verification errors, lack of real-time monitoring, duplicate beneficiaries, and inefficient tracking of travel limits, which reduce the scheme’s effectiveness.

To address these challenges, the project proposes a Digital Bus Pass Management System that automates registration, verification, travel tracking, and fare calculation. The system uses Aadhaar-based identity verification, mobile OTP authentication, QR code-based digital passes, cloud databases, and real-time processing. Women beneficiaries receive a unique digital ID and QR code, which conductors scan using a mobile app to record journey details. The system automatically tracks a 1600 km monthly free travel limit and calculates fares if the limit is exceeded. An admin dashboard enables monitoring, misuse detection, data analysis, and reporting.

The literature survey supports the use of QR-based ticketing, automated travel-limit enforcement, and digital identity verification as reliable, low-cost, and secure solutions for public transport and welfare schemes.

The proposed system consists of three modules:

• Beneficiary Module: Secure registration, QR pass generation, and access to travel history and balance.

• Conductor Module: QR scanning, distance calculation, trip logging, and fare computation.

• Admin Module: Centralized monitoring, fraud detection, account management, and analytics.

Conclusion

The Digital Bus Pass Management System proposed for the Mahalakshmi Scheme provides a secure, efficient, and transparent solution for managing free public transportation services for women. By replacing traditional manual processes with a fully digital platform, the system successfully addresses key challenges such as identity misuse, lack of real-time monitoring, manual fare calculation, and inefficient record management. The integration of mobile-based OTP authentication, Aadhaar verification, QR code–based identification, and automated distance calculation ensures accurate beneficiary validation and fair usage of the scheme. The system enables seamless interaction between beneficiaries, conductors, and administrators through well-defined modules. Beneficiaries can easily access their travel details and remaining free travel balance, while conductors can validate passengers and record journeys efficiently. The centralized admin dashboard supports real-time monitoring, fraud detection, and data-driven decision-making. Overall, the proposed solution improves transparency, operational efficiency, and accountability, making it a reliable digital infrastructure for public welfare transportation systems.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Nakka Madhu, Burse Anil Kumar, A Rajeshwari, Saleku Prasad, Mr. A. Narendhar. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.