Travelling in the buses of the Uttarakhand Roadways could be risky as lowly paid and overworked drivers are driving 80 per cent of the fleet of the State public carrier.The Uttarakhand Roadways have a fleet of 1,200 buses out of which about 1,000 buses are operational.
It is learnt that that most of these buses are driven by the drivers who are not the regular employees. The State Roadways have about 1,000 regular drivers while 1,300 drivers are employed under out sourcing. The non-regular drivers were employed by outsourcing agencies ‘Bareilly Expert security’ and ‘Jaib security’ which were removed by the State Government after they embezzled provident fund contributions of employees.
Interestingly, the regular drivers of the roadways prefer not to drive the buses on one plea or other, in such a scenario most of the buses are driven by the non regular drivers. Ashok Saini, a non-regular driver told The Pioneer that they are paid a paltry sum of Rs1.20 for every km they drive.
To compensate this, the drivers tend to drive for long hours putting the lives of passengers in peril. The motor vehicles act mandates that after every six hour of drive the driver should get minimum three hours of rest which is not being followed in the State Roadways.
It was revealed that the buses of State Roadways cover a distance of about 3 crore km in a month out of which 2.35 crore km are driven by outsource drivers. One of a senior officers of roadways admitted that worst drivers are driving the buses of State Roadways due to poor wages.
It is pertinent to mention here that no recruitment of regular drivers in State Roadways has taken place since the creation of a separate State of Uttarakhand due to which the average age of the regular drivers is in excess of fifty years.
The general secretary of Uttarakhand Roadways Employees Union Ashok Chaudhary said that unless all the outsource employees are made contractual workers and their wages are increased, the problem of poor quality of drivers in roadways would persist.
The General Manager Operations of State Roadways Rajiv Jain said that all the drivers who are driving the buses of roadways are selected by a committee which picks up only those candidates who have at least three years of driving heavy vehicles. He said that the State roadways are following all the norms for ensuring the safety of the passengers.