Southern States - Karnataka   

Pvt. bus operators seek share in monopoly routes

By M.Raghuram

MANGALORE JULY 22. The yet-to-come transport policy could prove to be a tightrope walk for the Krishna Government. Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts have the largest fleet of private transport vehicles. With the KSRTC no longer being an enigmatic and large organisation after it was broken into four, the new policy more or less is expected to focus on private participation even on monopoly routes. The State Bus Owners Federation suggested this to the Transport Minister at a recent meeting.

The Bus Owners Federation with over 7,000 vehicles, caters to non-serviceable areas in the interior parts of the State, while the KSRTC though rules the profit-making routes, still shows loss year after year. The Federation has made a couple of other suggestions pertaining to participation of private operators on 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 on the 30 per cent monopoly routes as an experiment. He said this suggestion had been a product of a sustained research by private operators as they had found that there was at least 40 per cent scope for new routes not tapped by the KSRTC and BMRTC in rural areas.

In another suggestion, the Federation said that private operators be permitted on priority on feeder lines where the KSRTC or BMRTC were not operating. This would bring down overcrowding in buses, which meant less number of accidents, and would check maxi-cab operators.

Both the KSRTC and the Federation are alarmed over the large number of maxi-cabs. According to an estimate by the Transport Department, there are 21,000 maxi-cabs in the State. The revenue earned by them should have been the share of private stage carriages and the KSRTC and BMRTC.

The Federation demanded that the five per cent infrastructure cess, which had cut the profits of private operators, be cancelled. The operators said that the KSRTC and private operators used the same infrastructure, but the KSRTC had been exempted from the cess.

The President of the Dakshina Kannada Private Bus Owners Association, Bhaskar Salian, said that maxi-cabs, taxis and jeeps that served the hilly regions of the district, at times ferried passengers more than their allotted capacity leading to traffic hazards.

With private operators demanding a share in monopoly routes, the KSRTC may have to take a re-look at its options on the monopoly routes not being operated by it.

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