The State Government on Wednesday slashed bus fare by a mere 1 paisa per kilometre in all categories of passenger bus services, fuelling resentments among people. Even though Commerce and Transport Minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi said that this fare cut was decided on a fuel price cut effected in January and the Government would announce a further fare cut on the basis of Tuesday's diesel price cut of Rs 2.25 per litre, yet passengers are not ready to accept his hint.
"Diesel prices have been cut several times but the Government has not slashed bus fare in proportion to the fall in the fuel prices. Today's bus fare cut of 1 paisa is very miserable and it would not benefit us anyway," said Namita Sahu, a daily bus commuter between Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
With 1 paisa cut, fare for ordinary buses has come down from 60 to 59 paisa per km and fare of express buses has gone down to 62 paise from 63 paisa. Similarly, fares of deluxe and AC buses have been decreased to 82 paisa and Rs 1.01 per km, respectively. Saroj Mohany, a student, said a system should be in place for automatic bus fare cut in view of frequent fuel price cut being effected due to deregulation.
Notably, in the second half of 2014, the price of diesel had come down by Rs 9.17 in four revisions but the bus fare was reduced by only 4 paisa per km. It may be noted that, despite repeated demands from passengers and private bus owners, the Government has not yet implemented the automatic fare correction system. Once this system is introduced, bus fare would go up or down as per the market price of fuel.
Though the Minister reiterates that Government will implement the automatic system, yet he has not given a definite time limit to introduce the same. A meeting of the Technical Committee of Transport Department was held in January to consider fare correction after drop in diesel prices. However, the Government was yet to release the committee report.
Besides, senior executives of the Transport Department had visited Maharashtra and Kerala to study their pricing system and have already submitted their report. However, no action has been taken on the report.