With Yatra season at its peak, the less than required number of drivers in Uttarakhand Transport Corporation is becoming a problem for the drivers. President of KarmchariAdhikari Nigam Mahasangh, Dinesh Gusain said that due to the staff shortage, the employees are doing extra shifts without taking proper rest in between. This could even lead to a major road accident in future as seen in recent cases of accidents caused by taxi drivers dozing off while driving.Gusain said, “Earlier in the two major road accidents in mountainous regions, 34 people died in one accident and 11 in the other.
Drivers dozing off while driving was one of the aspects of those accidents, after which the administration decided to send double crew on certain routes such as Delhi, Dwarahat, Bageshwar, Lansdowne, Devalkot and Joshimath, but in the present scenario an individual employee is doing continuous shifts without taking proper rest in between. For drivers it is more important to take rest.They have the responsibility of 40 to 50 passengers.”
He further added, “For the smooth operation of buses, we need 400 drivers additional at present though immediately we need at least 250 more drivers in Uttarakhand.”General Manager (administration and personnel), Nidhi Yadav said, “We have a structure for the operation of 1,100 buses. Shortage of staff is there, but it is not as bad as they are making it seem. In fact, we recruited some drivers in 2017. Now that order of 300 new buses has been issued, we will soon recruit more drivers for those buses.” When asked about the number of accidents due to this problem she said, “The incidence of roadways bus accidents because of this cause is low. These sorts of problem basically happen with private vehicles.”It is pertinent to mention that Roadways Karmchari Sanyukt Parishad is going to protest at UTC headquarters on June 11 regarding their 21 demands including immediate recruitment of drivers, immediate delivery of 300 buses and pending payment of retired roadways employees from year 2013. They were earlier going to conduct this protest on June 4, but after the assurance from Managing Director of UTC Rajesh Kumar they deferred it till June 11.