Southern States - Karnataka

Will Ramanath Rai be the saviour of pvt. bus operators?

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE JUNE 28. Will the new Transport Minister, B.Ramanath Rai, fulfil the aspirations of the transport industry?

The long pending transport policy is likely to have an inclination towards privatisation of monopoly routes in the State. At least, the State Bus Owners Federation suggested this to the Transport Minister, Sageer Ahmed, before the re-shuffle of the Krishna Ministry. The mantle now has fallen on Mr. Rai who may find the portfolio a mixed bag given the pits and falls of the Ministry.

The Bus Owners Federation, which has over 7,000 vehicles, may like to have a small piece of the cake as its caters to the non serviceable areas in the interior parts of the State, while the KSRTC still rules the profit-making routes. The Federation has made a couple of other suggestions also pertaining to participation of private operators in the reserved route category.

The President of the federation, Rajavarma Ballal, told The Hindu that the federation had requested the Government to allow private operators in the 30 per cent monopoly routes as an experiment. He said this suggestion had been a product of a research by private operators who found that there was at least 40 per cent scope for new routes untouched by the KSRTC and BMRTC in rural pockets where private operators could come in without burning a hole in the pockets of the government transport system.

In another suggestion, the federation sought the Government to allow private operators on a priority basis to operate their vehicles on feeder lines where the KSRTC or the BMRTC were not operating. This would bring down the incidences of overcrowding in buses, which meant less number of accidents and a check on maxicab operators who fleeced commuters in the rural sector.

Mr. Ballal said there were over 21,000 maxicabs operating in the State. The revenue earned by these maxicabs should have been the share of private operators and the KSRTC and BMRTC.

The federation demanded that the five per cent infrastructure cess be cancelled as it was eating into the profits of private operators. It said while both the KSRTC and private operators used the same infrastructure, the KSRTC had been exempted from the cess.

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