Over 400 private bus operators to be on strike in HP from Monday

Dharamsala: Around 3,500 private passenger buses will be off road indefinitely in Himachal Pradesh from Monday as operators press for their long-pending demands including increasing minimum fare, bus operators said Saturday.

The strike has been called by the Himachal Pradesh private bus operators union.

The union's president Rajesh Parashar said over 3,500 buses run by over 400 private operators will go on the indefinite strike Monday for their demand to hike the minimum fare from Rs 3 to Rs 10 per person, on par with their counterparts in Punjab and Haryana.

The bus operators are also demanding 50 per cent hike in fare and allowing buses more than five-year-old to ply in the state. Rajiv Mahajan, a bus operator in Dharamshala, said the minimum fare of Rs 3 was fixed when the price of diesel was Rs 48 a litre, the diesel price is now increased to Rs 74 per litre. It is now impossible to run the services on the old rates.