DJ Venkatesh
Diglipur, Jan 06: Directorate of Transport provides school bus passes to students who are living in remote areas but now it has been learnt that in Diglipur area this passes are heavily misused by students, causing huge loss to public exchequer.
As per this service the students can travel by obtaining a free bus pass from the local STS unit of all over A & N Islands. The Directorate of Education pays to the transport as Rs. 250/- per student. For the betterment of the students who are opting for tuition classes the Directorate of Transport issued a circular on 28th June ,2012 which says that “the holder of the pass shall be permitted to travel in all local STS Buses irrespective of distance and trips and has a validity in entire A & N Islands.”
So except ATR buses the students can avail bus pass in all bus routes number of times. The minimum limit of distance is 3 km. from the school but it can be relaxed by a justification from the Pradhan of that area.
But now it has been learnt that at Diglipur, taking advantage of this system many students are travelling all day from anywhere to everywhere, most of the time without uniforms.
These students now use free bus passes whole day for school and also for other purposes like shopping, picnic etc.
Some seats in every bus are reserved for the ladies and senior citizen but STS staffs allege that some unruly students come in group and do not vacate the seats even after request. In many occasions instead of vacating the students misbehaves with STS staffs.
The STS unit of Diglipur is one of the best maintained units but due to such gross misuse of bus passes, the STS unit is losing state exchequer. About 2800 bus passes are issued by Transport office of Diglipur this year.
At Diglipur, all schools are in same timings i.e 8.30 AM morning to 2.30 PM in the evening. Due to such misuse, the department is unable to cater the need of all the 2800 students with 14-15 buses and hence they have to run extra trips of buses.
The Education Department must conduct an inquiry in this regard and limit the use of such free bus passes only for school and tuitions or else for some students’ mistake all the public of the area will face various problems and the STS Department will continue to suffer losses.
