Vikramaditya & Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, June 01: Disagreement over Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) laid down for operation of Private Buses in Andaman by Administration has became the main reason why Private Buses are not being operated in city presently.
As per some important points of the SOP, Private Buses must scan temperature of all passengers, sanitize the bus many times a day, operate the bus in half strength etc.
The private bus operators are mainly demanding allowing more passengers in their bus or doubling the bus fare as they are incurring huge loss in fuel cost and also staff salary.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, the Director, Transport Department, Dr. Navlendra Kumar Singh, said that the demand of the Private Bus Operators is to double the fare if they are plying with 50 percent capacity, which is not at all possible as the general public are already under tremendous financial stress due to the pandemic.
Dr. Singh further considering the disagreement over SOP, the STS department has fully prepared itself to take care of the welfare of the people.
“Today we have already increased 10 more AC buses as well as seven non-AC buses and if there are more requirements we will increase more number of buses but in any circumstances, we will not double the fare for private buses as it will be totally against the welfare of the people,” Dr. Singh added.
Meanwhile, Dr. Singh said that a meeting is scheduled again with the private bus operators tomorrow where they will have a discussion on this issue again.
However, talking to Andaman Sheekha a few bus operators said that if they ply buses in 50 percent capacity they won’t be able to manage even the cost of the fuel.
They also argued that when the two-wheelers are permitted to ply with two people, then why two people cannot sit in one bench on a bus.
