‘Rogue’ buses to face the whip

‘Rogue’ buses to face the whip
BY SANCHITA SEN
BENGALURU







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Private bus services operating clandestinely on routes not approved for them by the government, are in trouble.

The authorities intend to introduce GPS tracking on all public and private buses to ensure they don’t go off in directions they are not supposed to. Officers of the transport department have been receiving complaints about clandestine operators, who cause delays in arrivals and departures for passengers by taking them to destinations they are not authorised to service.

The effort is to plug loopholes in the system to ensure a better travelling experience for all. “As the number of commuters is rising there is an increase in demand for buses operating on different routes. So many private operators have started illegal services,” says a transport department officer. A special cell has now been put in place to check such clandestine operations. The officer, however, assures that private companies running on proper permits and on their designated routes have no cause for worry.

Around 25,000 buses leave the city for different destinations every day. Of them around 7,000 are private buses. It’s a small percentage of these which are now under watch.

“The installation of GPS tracking will help us identify clandestine operators who will then be strictly banned from plying on the national highways,” says a senior officer of the transport department. GPS track ing has already been installed in a few buses as a pilot project.

“It has been a success. So we are now looking at introducing it in all private as well as government buses,” says the officer.

That the government is very serious about it all became apparent when transport minister, R. Ashok recently talked about submitting a report to the high court to say that the government is capable of meeting the demand for transport in the state. He hopes this will ensure the whip can be cracked on clandestine operators on the highways.

STATE TO RUN 1,600 MORE BUSES T he department of transport has initiated steps to meet the gaps that would arise when private buses are banned from roads in the state.

Minister for transport R Ashok said the department has given an affidavit to the court that 1,600 new buses would replace as many private buses plying now. It has also released Rs 100 crore towards improvement of its existing infrastructure. He said the reason for keeping the private bus operators off the road was their refusal to operate in the routes that were not profitable. This had come in the way of government providing transport facilities in the interior parts of the state, he added.

Mr Ashok denied that keeping the private buses off the road was done after pressure from the Volvo buses lobby. “The number of Volvo buses to be purchased at different phases and stages was decided by the earlier Congress government, when Mr S. M. Krishna was the chief minister. Hence the question of yielding to the Volvo lobby does not hold water,” he said. He said buying the Marcopolo buses from the Tatas because these buses had the same facilities as Volvo had but was cheaper.