A day after the tragic road accident claimed at least 48 lives in Pauri, the State Transport Minister Yashpal Arya said that strictest possible action would be taken against the officials who would be found responsible for Dhumakot bus tragedy through their slackness of duty. While talking to the newsmen at his Vidhan Sabha office on Monday, the Minister expressed deep shock over the magnitude of the tragedy and he accepted that overloading could be one of the reasons behind the mishap. He, further said that prima facie, it seems that the fitness of the ill- fated bus was up to the mark and the bus was technically in good shape. Arya said that the overloading aspect is being looked into while assuring that responsibility would be fixed if it is found that the bus was overloaded. He said that those responsible for checking the carrying capacity of buses would not be spared and brought to the book and punished.
Arya, further, said that 100 new buses would be soon purchased to augment the fleet of the State Transport Corporation. He said that the State Government would take a loan to purchase new buses and assured that sufficient number of new buses would operate on the hill routes.
Quizzed over the dwindling attendance at the Janta Darbar programmes of the Ministers, Arya said that the Ministers are also holding Janta Milan programmes at the district levels to hear out the grievances of the people and soon it would be extended to the block levels. He attributed the lesser attendance at the Janta Milan programmes held at the State party office to the effectiveness of the grievance redressing mechanism operating in the districts.