Haryana’s new Transport Policy, approved by the State Cabinet some six months back in September 2012, will finally be notified in the September this year.
State Transport Commissioner Sumita Mishra, stating this, added that the new policy is aimed at adding over 4,100 new buses to the existing fleet in both public as well as private sectors.
Mishra also stated that this will provide affordable transportation to the common man, who has to use private autos, jaungas, or other four wheelers in different areas of state especially in the remote areas.
According to the transport officials, 3,519 permits would be offered under the new stage carriage permit scheme covering 1,017 routes to private bus operators. On the other hand, they stated that the state-owned Haryana Roadways will add about 600 new buses to its existing fleet which will increase its strength to 4,150.
The decision of allowing private players in the transport sector in a big way and to take the posts of driver outside the purview of the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) and fill these immediately at the department level was also taken by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
State Transport department has also decided to continue existing permit holders to ply their buses on the existing routes till further orders. The state government wants to include the transport policies announced in 1993 and 2001 in the present new transport policy too.
According to the sources, during late Bhajan lal’s government in Haryana in the year 1993, 900 permits were given to the private players, which remained under scanner time to time. Now, after an order by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on a petition regarding these 900 permits, the state has been asked to stop all these buses before September 2013.
The private players are still plying their buses on the existing routes and will continue till September 2013.
Interestingly, the current Hooda government is not interested in stopping the buses by these private players and want to include these permits in 3519 new permits, so that they may ply their buses hassle free on the roads. For the same, the state government had also filed a fresh petition in the Apex Court.
If the decision from the Apex Court on the issue didn’t come before September 2013, these 900 buses will have to stop plying on the roads in the state.
However, there are apprehensions that the entry of big private players in the state transport could lead to a monopoly of the transport service by big transporters, including influential politicians, quite similar to the situation in the neighboring state Punjab.