Karnataka   

Bus owners’ strike likely from today

BANGALORE: The Karnataka State Bus Owner’s Federation said on Monday that it would join the strike if the Government did not withdraw the order on making speed governors mandatory for all commercial vehicles that includes goods carriers and stage carriers.

The federation will wait till 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

The federation has 7,000 vehicles plying in 17 districts of the State mainly in Bangalore Urban and rural, Chitradurga, Tumkur, Ramanagaram, Mysore, Kolar, Davangere, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Shimoga, and Dharwad and sparsely serviced by private buses in some other districts like Uttara Kannada, Bellary, Gulburga and Bidar.

Federation president Rajavarma Ballal told The Hindu that it was not fair on the part of the Government to ask the trucks to fix speed governors. This would delay the delivery of consignments and truck operators would lose business to transporters from other States.

Mr. Ballal said from Tuesday morning, the federation would stop all buses of the operators owing allegiance to it. Several bus owners in Bangalore Urban district suspended their schedules on Monday, following repeated requests from the Karnataka State Federation of Lorry Owners’ Association.

According to federation general secretary K.T. Rajshekar, the private operators in Bangalore Urban and Rural districts hade stopped their operations from Monday.

Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) general manager (operations) K.A. Rajkumar told The Hindu that the corporation had pressed its “emergency traffic management system” into service during the first day of the strike on Monday.

He said the corporation had 14 per cent of its fleet under “relief category” which took over in a situation that demanded pressing of more buses into service.

Mr. Rajkumar said the corporation had excellent communication system and every driver and conductor had been instructed to get in touch with the nearest bus depot or the station to indent for relief bus sent to the point where it was needed. This system had been activated on Monday, he added. In several cases, the buses were used for carrying milk and vegetables and bakery products to the interior places on Monday.

In such cases, the buses had to undergo a slight modification of removal of the seats, Mr. Rajkumar said. The BMTC had its share emergency services.

According to BMTC Chief Traffic Manager Dastagir Sherief, BMTC had pressed into service 250 more buses on Monday and all the 4,800 buses on regular schedules had been asked to do two more trips each.

Quoting the trip sheet details reviewed at 8 p.m., Mr. Sherief said all the traffic check points had reported additional trips done by the BMTC schedules. Mr. Sherief said the BMTC buses had run full throughout the day.

Both KSRTC and the BMTC would be in “emergency mode” on Tuesday following the talks between the truck operators and the Government failed on Monday night.

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