In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling to revoke the licences of private buses along the nationalised Tripunithura-Thiruvankulam route, various unions are pressing the officials to immediately operate the KSRTC buses in the route. Currently, the nationalised route leads to 36 other routes in and out of the city.
“The ruling is in our favour. However, no steps have been taken to run the buses in the route. If the officials fail to run services on time, the private bus lobby will influence the higher-ups and take over the route again,” said members of the Kerala State Road Transport Employees Association. The ruling came into effect last month.
STRIKE
The union members said that they are planning to launch strike if the officials fail to take any step in this regard. “The officials are making false promises that the buses will commence service from September. There is acute shortage of buses. Besides, at least 200 chassis are lying neglected in various depots across the state. With such dearth of buses in the state, it will also be impossible to divert the KSRTC services plying in other routes via Tripunithura and Thiruvankulam,” they said.However, the KSRTC officials said that they are confident of running the services by September.
“We are preparing a timetable. The number of required buses has to be finalised. Since we have opposed the private buses in the route, it is our duty to make sure that our services run on time. We are definitely up to it,” said KSRTC zonal officer Sebastian Thomas.
Regional Transport Officer T J Thomas said that all the private buses whose permits have been withdrawn are running on temporary permits for four months via the route, RTO T J Thomas said.
Source: New Indian Express