Date:11/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/07/11/stories/2007071153521000.htm

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Students go on the warpath

T. Ramavarman

Minister decries ‘unilateral move’ of bus owners to hike students’ fare

– Photo; S. Ramesh Kurup

Vying for a foothold: Passengers jostling to board a Kerala State Road Transport Corporation bus in Kozhikode after private buses went off the road following a strike called by private bus operators on Tuesday.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The agitation by a section of students against the proposed move of the bus owners to reduce the rates of concession in fares given to students took violent a turn in Thrissur and Kannur on Tuesday.

Following this, the bus owners have given strike call in both these districts on Wednesday.

Private busses remained off the road in most of the parts of Kozhikode and Ernakulam districts on Tuesday to protest against the attack on the offices of bus owners’ associations in these districts on Monday.

The latest bout of students’ protests was triggered by the decision of the bus owners to collect 50 per cent fares from the students from July 15. The pro-Congress students outfit, Kerala Students Union, was in the forefront of the agitation.

AISF to join stir

The All India Students Federation, the students’ wing of the CPI, also threatened to launch agitation if the bus owners persisted with their ‘unilateral’ decision.

Kerala State Private Bus Operators’ Federation president Lawrence Babu told The Hindu here that the students were spared from the two bus fare hikes introduced in the State in the last four years. Consequently they were now pa ying only 16 per cent of the charges being paid by the general public in private buses in the State. This had severely strained the financial base of nearly 30,000 private buses now operating in the State, he said.

KSU president Hibi Eden said the fare concession was a right that the students in the State had wrested through a series of intense struggles and the bus owners could not arbitrarily decide to deny it. “We will not allow any bus to ply anywhere in the State from July 16 if the bus owners decided to collect 50 per cent fares from the students,” he said.

Transport Minister Mathew T. Thomas said the bus owners had no right to hike the students’ bus fare on their own without any consultation. He said the bus fares were hiked last time in such a way that it would compensate the losses likely to be caused by the decision to spare the students from the purview of the hike.