Delhi bound passengers on Tuesday got a sigh of relief with the decision of the Haryana Roadways Workers Joint Action Committee to postpone its call for not taking the buses in Delhi territory from July 19 to July 21.
The proposed agitation was postponed for three months on certain conditions after a joint meeting with Director General, State Transport, Haryana here at Chandigarh. As of now, a decision has been taken to run the bus service to Delhi normally. Arun Kumar, Director General, State Transport confirmed that during meeting it was decided to constitute a Committee to study the actual pattern of challans done by Delhi Police.
“The Committee shall comprise five officials from the department and an equal number of members of the Joint Action Committee. This committee will visit Delhi and study the challan process taking place in Delhi and, if possible, video-recording will be done, particularly of the challans done in ‘No Parking’ area, where the passengers are either dropped or picked. The Committee will also submit its study report within three months and after that, appropriate action will be taken” said Kumar.
Sarbat Punia, leader of Haryana roadways workers’ union said the call was postponed for three months as they wanted to see how the Government reacts to the demands and genuine problems. Haryana Roadways workers had refused to enter the borders of Delhi over challans issued by Delhi traffic police earlier last month on June 15 for one day. It caused lot of harassment to thousands of commuters traveling by State-run Haryana Roadways buses to Delhi and the families.
At that time, these Haryana Roadways buses refused to enter national Capital and had dropped passengers at the four main entry points towards Delhi on borders including Kundli (towards Sonepat side), Badarpur (towards Faridabad), Tikri (towards Sirsa) and Siroli (towards Jaipur).
Punia claimed that a large numbers of Delhi Police staff, many of whom belong to Haryana, insist on free travel when they commute by Haryana Roadways buses. When bus conductors ask for tickets, our buses are challaned.
DG State transport department assured us that they will provide us small stoppage at Delhi in between the ISBT, besides videography of challans etc., added Punia on the decision to postpone the call of boycotting Delhi by three months.