The Uttarakhand Transport Department is considering various options to provide some assistance or relaxation to the operators of the public transport vehicles after it recently limited the number of passengers in public transport due to the surge in Covid-19 cases. Recently, the State Government issued orders to run public vehicles at 50 per cent of the seating capacity as a preventive measure to restrict the Covid-19 contagion among the passengers like it did the last year.

However, unlike the last year, the government has not permitted the operators to raise the fares of public transport so far. Due to this, as per the officials, many private operators of the public transport are either seeking exemption in the seating capacity or demanding an increase in the fare of each passenger.

Many have approached the transport department for the same as according to the operators, they have to face a huge loss if they run the vehicles at 50 per cent occupancy. However, some have also opined that the government should assist the private operators in other ways like giving exemption in taxes and insurances of the vehicles rather than increasing the fare as according to them, people would start avoiding public vehicles if they would be charged double amid the pandemic like the last year.

Talking about providing relaxation to the public transport operators, the Transport secretary Ranjit Kumar Sinha said that the department is presently considering various possibilities to assist the operators. He said that the department is mulling over the proposals like whether to increase or double the fares of the passengers or provide some kind of financial help that might help operators to survive during the pandemic with fewer earnings.

Sinha said that the department is presently working to figure out the best possible way that proves to be well for everyone considering the critical Covid situation in the state and would possibly issue orders for the same by the end of this week.

Meanwhile, the Char Dham Yatra is all set to commence from the next month but the department has not commenced the application process to issue the green cards to the commercial vehicle drivers visiting Char Dham circuit. Sinha also shed some light on the issue by disclosing that all the procedures to commence online service to issue green cards are nearly completed and the application process would probably start by the end of this month.