Team Herald
PANJIM: The All Goa Private Bus Owners Association (AGPBOA) has deferred its hunger strike protest from September 7 following an assurance by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to settle their pending issues.
AGPBOA had issued statutory notice to the State government to resolve long pending issues including fuel subsidy and replacement of old buses latest by September 6, failing which they would resort to hunger strike.
AGPBOA general secretary SudipTamankar on Wednesday said that he held a meeting with the Chief Minister, who assured him that the government will settle their demands. He said that the Chief Minister told him that the file regarding fuel subsidy to private stage carriage operators scheme will be processed and the same will be period from June 2018 up to March 2020. Similarly the government had also agreed to disburse the amount of the Goa State Public Transport Insurance Contribution Scheme, which was pending from 2017.
Tamankar further said that the Chief Minister has sought time to study the Replacement of old bus by new bus scheme since the private bus operators had urged the government to increase the quantum amount from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per vehicle. This scheme was also stopped from 2017, he informed.
Tamankar further urged the government to renew and disburse the amount of scheme “The Goa State Public Transport Insurance Contribution Scheme, 2014”, which is pending from 2017 and to appoint immediately a full-time officer from Goa Civil Service cadre as the Director of Transport.
Tamankar said that the private bus operators have also requested the government to grant permission for side number plates on commercial vehicles in Konkani orMarathi in the State and to arrest the driver on the spot and not to detain the commercial vehicle by Police or RTO, in the cases of drunken drive/driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. They had also requested the government to constitute co-ordination committee between private stage carriage bus operators and officials of Kadamba Transport
Corporation Ltd (KTCL).
Last month, Tamankar had given ultimatum to the government to settle their pending issues on priority before September 6, failing which the affected bus and taxi operators will protest by resorting to hunger strike in front of the Chief Minister’s residence at Pale-Kothambi by taking coconut shell in hands to beg before the people visiting his house for Ganesh Chaturthi festival.