NEW DELHI: Women in Delhi will be able to travel for free in DTC and cluster scheme buses from Tuesday, when Bhai Dooj is observed. A total of 13,000 marshals, including 6,000 civil defence personnel, Home Guards and ex-service men, will be deployed to ensure the safety of the women.In a session organised at Thyagraj Stadium, bus marshals were also trained to help the sick and respond to emergency situations during the journey. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal asked them to ensure the safety of women so that they felt the comfort of a home in the government buses.Following the approval of the transport minister, a notification to enable the women to enjoy free rides from Tuesday was issued around 10pm on Monday. Until then, a minor bureaucratic reshuffle, in which transport commissioner Rajeev Verma was replaced, had left officials in DTC speculating for a few hours about whether the free ride would be rolled out on Tuesday.The absence of notification had also held up the distribution of passes among DTC depots. The notification issued around 10pm, however, cleared all doubts.“The two crore people of Delhi are my family, and I am like an elder son of this family. I must take care of each member of my family. It is my duty to ensure that each person gets free electricity up to 200 units for 24 hours, to send my elders to teerth yatras, and provide all facilities to them for a comfortable life. However, it has been a matter of concern for me that the women of my family do not feel safe in the city,” Kejriwal said at the training session.“Delhi will be the only city in the world to have such a huge number of bus marshals deployed on a single day.”The chief minister in June had announced free rides for women in DTC, cluster scheme buses and Delhi Metro. The free ride scheme for the Metro may take a longer time because of the technicalities involved. The scheme to deploy bus marshals was also rolled out in June. A budget of Rs 290 crore was later sanctioned for the free ride scheme for women, which included Rs 90 crore for DTC buses , 50 crore for cluster buses, and Rs 150 crore for Metro trains.“The government may consider offering free rides to senior citizens and students in future,” the CM added.As many as 1.5 crore pink passes have been printed. These passes will be given to women when they board the buses. The passes will have a message on women empowerment as well. DTC officials say that around 10 lakh passes are likely to be issued daily.The corporation is planning to run maximum possible number of buses on Bhai Dooj day, because the free ride offer is expected to generate a huge response. Additional 5,550 buses are likely to ply on Tuesday.