The main means of public transport in Dehradun are city buses and Vikram tempos. However, the operation of both these means of public transport is marred by various anomalies.
For example, those travelling regularly on the city buses plying between Jolly Grant and Dehradun State that various regulations are blatantly violated by the operators.
These city buses are frequently overloaded, the conductor doesn’t provide the passengers with tickets and both the drivers and conducts do not wear uniforms as required by the law.
When one of the conductors was asked about the tickets and uniform, he said “We are not given any uniforms to wear by the bus owners, so we don’t know about it.
Further, we are not provided any ticket machine to give tickets to the passengers. At the end of the day, the bus owners simply ask us about the money earned during the day,” the conductor added.
One of the factors responsible for continued violation of rules on the city buses is the reluctance of commuters to question the violations. The commuters state that since they travel regularly in the city buses they don’t wish to quarrel over these issues for a ticket costing Rs 40.
They believe that even if they demand that the rules be followed, it will make no difference.
When asked about this, the city bus union president Vijay Vardhan Dandriyal said, “The Regional Transport Office charges a fine of Rs 500 for not giving tickets to the passengers, Rs 1,000 for not wearing the uniform and even for overloading the fine has increased from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 per passenger.
As far as the uniforms are concerned, we are still working on this issue because we don’t have permanent drivers as of now.
The bus tends to get overcrowded mainly during peak hours,” he said.