Committee formed to regulate bus fare according to fuel price

Kolkata: A committee led by Additional Chief Secretary of the state Transport department, Alapan Bandyopadhyay, has been formed to prepare a report to regulate bus fare according to the price of fuel.

This comes at the time when the state government has been forced to give its nod to increase the bus fare by Re 1 for every 4 km, as the diesel price has gone up at an alarming

rate.

Following a meeting headed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, with bus owners and operators associations, the state Transport minister Suvendu Adhikari said: "It has been thought to develop a mechanism, based on which the bus fare will get regulated as per the rate of diesel."

He further said that a team that will be led by Bandyopadhyay, will prepare a report in this connection. The report will be prepared within a month and has to be submitted for the Chief Minister's approval.

Once the mechanism is in place, the bus fare will go down if the diesel price decreases and it will go up if bus operators have to buy the same at a higher price. But the regulatory commission will not be followed.

It may be mentioned that this is the first time when such a step has been taken in the state and it would immensely help commuters.

According to experts, this is going to be a unique step that the state Transport department would take, thanks to which people would not have to pay more when fuel prices decrease.

It may be mentioned that the price of diesel keeps fluctuating. But never has such an initiative been taken, in which people have to pay less if the cost of operating buses goes down.

It may be recalled that the state Transport department has taken several steps in the past seven years, for the benefit of commuters.

The Pathadisha app was introduced by the state Transport department to help commuters get real time location of buses. Initially, it was only possible to get location of private buses. Later, a large section of private buses was also incorporated into the app.