Bhubaneswar, Oct 2 (Inditop.com) Private buses in Orissa kept off the roads for the second day Friday to protest a hike in toll fee, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
Bus services were badly hit, especially in coastal districts as private buses kept off the National Highway 5 and 5A.
The private bus owners went on strike Thursday protesting the ‘exorbitant’ hike in toll fee collected along the national highways.
“The toll fee collected on the highways is exorbitant. A private bus plying on the national highway has to fork out Rs.231-281 at each toll gate. And the long-distance buses are at a disadvantage as they have to pay about Rs.1,100 a day for plying on the highways,” said Prakash Mishra, president All Orissa Bus Owners’ Association.
The bus owners association has already given a three point proposal to the state government – 20 percent cut in VAT collection, reduction in fuel cess, a joint sharing of hike in toll fee.
But the state government is not ready to accept any of the proposals. It says the toll fee is collected uniformly by the National Highways Authority of India across the country and the state government has nothing to do with it.
“The proposals given by the bus owners are not acceptable to the government. The bus owners are welcome to come up with a proposal to hike passenger fares. Our steering committee will study the proposal and suitably hike the fare,” said Sanjeev Kumar Sahu, state transport minister.
However, bus owners are not ready to hike bus fares. They maintain a “further hike in passenger fare would leave bus journeys costlier than train journeys and leave bus owners at the receiving end”.
The state government is plying eight additional buses and two trains along the coastal highway route to meet exigencies. But it is too little to meet passenger requirements as about 1,000 private buses are off the road.
