With JEE and NEET entrance examination lined up from September 01 inter-district bus services will resume from Tuesday so that aspirant students and their parents don’t face problems in commuting. The decision has also been taken on the demands of bus operators.
The State government on August 28, gave its consent to resume bus services with fresh Covid 19 guidelines. The buses have been stranded at bus stands since March 25, when lockdown was first imposed in the country restricting movement of commuters to curb the spread of coronavirus.
A meeting of bus operators and with district administration was held today at collectorate office, where Ranchi Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Lokesh Mishra issued necessary guidelines to bus operators.
As per the district administration guidelines, bus conductors will give necessary Covid-19 safety measures such as wearing masks, use of sanitizers to passengers on the bus. As per district administration directive it will be the duty of conductors to assign seats to passengers. If a passenger is not wearing masks it will be the duty of concerned bus operators to provide masks to passengers.
Also, the bus stand district administration team will create awareness about the corona virus and safety measures to be taken to check the spread of infection through loudspeakers.
Kishore Mantri of Mantri Bus service said, “As bus service is resuming after six months, initially only 25 per cent buses will run. Once the number of passengers on route increases more buses will move on the route.”
Mantri also said, “As buses were stranded at bus stands for more than six months many buses required repairs.” Meanwhile, bus operators have decided to charge for two seats from one passenger as due to lockdown restrictions private bus operators have been permitted to resume bus services with limited passengers.
As per State Government directive, private bus operators have been allowed to resume bus services with just half the sanctioned passengers’ strength. If a bus has 50 seats capacity only 25 passengers will be allowed to travel.
Though the bus operators have received consent from State government to resume bus services, the bus operators are yet to get any official order on slashing road tax during lockdown period. The bus operators have been demanding the state government to exempt road tax during the lockdown period.
Another bus operator requesting anonymity said, “We have come to know that the State government has decided to exempt road tax during the lockdown period, but we are yet to receive any official order.” The bus operators claimed if the State government fails to accept our demand exempting road tax during the lockdown period we are left with no other alternative but to go on strike from September 16.