Other States - Haryana   

Roadways staff protest against Volvo bus service

Special Correspondent

Some employees put up roadblocks; damage the luxury coach

CHANDIGARH: The launch of the luxury Volvo bus service by the Haryana Government has evoked protests from some employees of the Haryana Roadways. According to reports reaching the State Headquarters here, the employees not only put up roadblocks at various places but also damaged the Volvo coach between Chandigarh-Hissar which was flagged off from here by Transport Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala on Wednesday.

The staff of the Haryana Roadways is opposing the Government decision to allow private bus operators to operate the Volvos on lucrative routes. There is resentment also due to the fact that the Transport Department is providing staff and fuel to these private operators to run the coaches.

Meanwhile an official spokesman of the Transport Department said here that some disgruntled elements were trying to spread rumours and misleading the roadways workers for their `petty personal gains'. He further clarified that the Saarthi Volvo AC Bus Services were introduced by Haryana Roadways from October 1, 2005 on demand of the passengers. Since the cost of Volvo buses was very high, the Department had hired these buses on experimental basis and put them on the Chandigarh-Delhi and Delhi-Katra routes.

He added that Himachal Road Transport Corporation and Delhi Transport Corporation had hired such buses much before Haryana Roadways and in their cases too, the driver and maintenance were the responsibility of the bus supplier. However, the conductor belonged to the Roadways which provided diesel and also collected the revenue.

He added that the Delhi-Katra route had been scrapped and the frequency on Delhi-Chandigarh route had been increased to seven trips daily. Two trips were extended up to Gurgaon via Indira Gandhi International Airport Delhi and two more trips were extended up to the Domestic Airport. The response had been good and up to April 30 this year, about 50,000 people had travelled by these buses.

The Haryana Roadways has earned a profit of approximately Rs. 46 lakhs from these services in the last seven months.

He said that these hired buses were in addition to the usual fleet of Haryana Roadways. The authorised fleet of Haryana Roadways was 3,500 buses and all seven-year-old buses were being replaced by new ones.

The Department was filling up the vacant posts of conductors and drivers at the earliest. It had also taken various measures to redress the long- pending genuine demands of the workers.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Haryana plan for development of sugarcane
Roadways staff protest against Volvo bus service
Haryana to get more power from NTPC

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu