Bus owners call off strike
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, MAY 24
Private bus operators today called off their strike after Director of Transport Swapnil Naik assured them to consider and study their demands in next 15 days.
The bus operators were up-in-arms against the State Government as the earlier deadline of 15 days given by them expired today. They had threatened of having a day long strike on May 25 pressuring the Government to heed to their demands.
“We met the director today and he has asked for 15 more days to sort out the issues”, All Goa Private Bus Owners Association’s General Secretary Sudip Tamankar said.
Naik has recently taken over the charge as director after Venancio Furtado was relieved from his duties and transferred as managing director of Kadamba Transport Corporation.
Tamankar said that the Transport Department has informed them that the ticket fare hike issue is already in process and will be decided soon.
“We withdrew our strike as we did not want the passengers to be put to inconvenience”, Tamankar said.
He stated that the bus owners will meet Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and Transport Minister Ramakrishna Dhavlikar in next couple of days to reiterate their demands.
A fortnight back, the bus owners had met transport minister and transport director with their charter of demands. The bus owners had demanded fare hike and restrictions on 50 per cent concession to students, to be permitted to operate buses on nationalised routes and many other demands were listed out by the bus owners.
Ads on private buses?
Private bus operators have appealed to the Government to allow them to display advertisements on their vehicles in order to allow them to get some revenue.
Taking up the matter with the Director of Trasnport Swapnil Naik on Monday, they urged the director that they should be allowed to function like Government-run KTC which for quite some time now has advertisements displayed on the rear side.
The director is learnt to have told them that he would have to consider the legal side. Naik told them that in view of the defacement Act, he would have to take legal view on the issue. If permitted, the other parametres would follow, the sources said. – (HR)
