lashing out at the Punjab Government, former Finance Minister and the People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) president Manpreet Singh Badal on Tuesday accused it of sacrificing the Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) to promote transport companies owned by the ruling Badals, particularly Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal.
Manpreet was reacting to the transfer of PRTC’s managing director Manjit Singh Narang.
Calling the transfer “shameful, disgusting and sickening”, he said that Narang’s efforts had, of late, started to bear fruit as the PRTC was coming “out of the red” and people travelling by super luxury buses were getting a much cheaper alternative. Narang had also strengthened the fleet of PRTC’s ordinary buses, he said.
Manpreet said that Narang’s transfer was an example that “any officer managing the state transport efficiently to elbow out private players would not suit the ruling dispensation”. “It’s shocking,” he said, “that this official (Narang) has been shunted out within 10 months (of appointment) instead of allowing him to further improve the service and replicate the model all over the State.”
“The problem is that PRTC’s super luxury buses had started to charge only `650 for a trip to Delhi airport, even as the buses owned by Sukhbir Singh Badal charge anything between `1,800 to `2,400,” Manpreet said.
Manpreet also said that Sukhbir owned the biggest fleet of super luxury buses and had earlier been instrumental in “tweaking” the state transport policy. “PRTC would earlier cover the entire Malwa belt, but that the transport giant was turned into a sick unit as part of the ruling Badal family’s direct interest in the sector,” he said.