Bus owners are agitated over the fare fixed by the State administration for their vehicles to be requisitioned for the ensuing Assembly elections due next month and have decided to meet officials of police, transport and election department on Monday demanding hike in the fare. They alleged that the fare fixed by the administration was not in sync with the inflation prevalent presently.
Notably, dates for Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh have been announced with which procedures for conducting the polls have also started. The State administration will acquire large number of buses to conduct the poll and for that matter it announced fare list for the buses and other vehicles to be requisitioned. As fare fixed by the Government is allegedly much less than the actual one, the bus operators are agitated.
General Secretary of ‘Yatayat Parivahan Mahasangh’ Haji Sharif Raza alleged that while the price of diesel was on continuous roll and spare parts also becoming dearer day by day, bus operators are finding it hard to agree to the fare fixed by the administration for poll duty of their vehicles.
According to Raza, the government has fixed Rs 25 per kilometre for 15 seater vehicle, Rs 30 per kilometre for 16-25 seater buses, Rs 35 for 26-34 seater buses, Rs 40 for 35-50 seater buses and Rs 45 per kilometre for buses having 51 and above seats capacity. Besides, for night halt separate rates have been fixed which is insufficient from the point of view of high operational cost of buses, he rued.
On the other hand, the bus operators have demanded Rs 7,000 per day and Rs 40 per kilometre for 50 seater buses, Rs 4,000 per day and Rs 30 per kilometre for 35 seater vehicle, 3,700 per day and Rs 30 per km for 30 seater buses and Rs 3,500 per day for 22 seater buses. If the Government does not hike the fare the bus operators would suffer heavy loss on this account. Raza alleged that the administration has even reduced the fare fixed for the last election by 20 percent.
He said that on the issue of fare fixation he would meet Director General of Police, Additional commissioner of transport department as well as chief election officer of the state and after that next course of action will be charted out if the fare is not revised.