The Odisha Bus Owners’ Association on Tuesday urged the State Government to fix passenger fare by way of an automatic mechanism based on the fluctuation of prices of fuel and other allied commodities relating to motor industries.
Since the fluctuation of diesel prices has negative impact on the bus operators, who are sustaining huge loss and the passengers as well, the State Government should opertionalise an automatic mechanism in the interest of the passengers and to ensure smooth running of the passenger transport, said Debendra Kumar Sahoo of the association after meeting Chief Secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra here.
The representatives of the association led by its president Prakash Mishra paid a courtesy call to the Chief Secretary at the State Secretariat on Tuesday and had a brief discussion over the operational problems being faced by the bus owners due to consecutive hikes in the prices of diesel.
“We urged the Chief Secretary to ask the Technical Committee formed at the Commerce and Transport Department to start a process for formulating a mechanism under which the passenger fare would be fixed automatically with the fall and rise in the prices of diesel,” said Sahoo.
Stating that the passenger fare in respect of State carriage vehicles was last hiked in November, 2012 when the price of diesel was `49.83 per liter, he said that during the last seven months, there had been an increase of `4 per liter.
Since the bus operators are facing hardship in the wake of regular and steep hike in diesel and other related commodities, the association pleaded with Chief Secretary to take step for upward revision of the passenger fare before the car festival, he said.
However, Sahoo and Mishra refused to spell out their future step in the absence of any hike of passengers fare before the car festival.
Sahoo said that basically the passenger fare is fixed keeping in view the price of fuel, machineries, spare parts, insurance and MV Tax which are correlated with the passenger transport.