Transport officials, pvt bus operators to meet today

Kolkata: State Transport department officials and private bus operators will sit for a meeting on Thursday to resolve the impasse over the financial relief package rejected by the latter for resuming their services announced by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

"We will meet the Transport officials and submit the revised proposal on fare hike on Thursday," said Tapan Banerjee, general secretary of Joint Council of Bus Syndicates.

While the bus operators demanded fare hike and had suspended their services in most of the routes, the state government offered them a monthly dole of Rs 15,000 each to 6,000 private buses in the city for three months on June 26.

On Tuesday, the Chief Minister had warned to acquire 6,000 private buses in Kolkata through the imposition of National Disaster Management Act if owners continue to refuse to ply them even after July 1.

"Bus owners are running their buses with seating capacity of the passengers due to COVID-19 physical distancing norms. The revenue has gone down and cost of running buses have increased 300 times. They don't even have money to buy diesel that has now shot up to Rs 75.64 per litre," said Pradip Narayan Bose, secretary of West Bengal Bus and MiniBus Owners' Association.

Meanwhile, a Calcutta High Court lawyer Rama Prasad Sarkar moved a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on Wednesday to resolve the private bus impasse. The main plea was to set up a high-powered committee who would scrutinise all the options to reach a solution.

The Pool Cars Owners' Welfare Association waived off 50 percent monthly charges for the month of July for parents of the students in the wake of the nationwide lockdown.

"We conducted a meeting with the pool car operators. During the meeting we have decided to waive off 50 percent of the monthly charges from parents of student commuters for the month of July," Sudip Dutta, secretary of Pool Cars Owners' Welfare Association.