Inter-district bus services of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) and that of private operators, which had been restricted from March 25 as part of the lockdown to contain COVID-19, will begin on Wednesday.
The services will charge fares that prevailed before the lockdown from a district to an adjoining district from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. in view of night curfew, as per the decision of a high-level meeting chaired by Transport Minister A.K. Saseendran here on Tuesday.
All the seats will be available for travel. Commuters will not be allowed to stand and travel and will have to wear face-masks. The buses will not halt at containment zones.
Private bus operators, caught unawares by the government decision to allow inter-district and intra-district services with full seating capacity and old fares, has decided to toe the line as 90% of their buses had vacated “G” Form submitted to evade road tax. These buses will have to pay tax and insurance and the operators say the revenue from the fleet will not be enough even to purchase fuel.
‘Betrayal and injustice’
Lawerence Babu, chairman, Joint Action Council of Bus Owners, who met the Minister later, said they had conveyed the “betrayal and injustice” by the government by not increasing the bus fare and curbing the number of passengers that can be ferried.
“We have told the Minister that the council will meet soon to take a call and convey the decision to him. It is left to the operators to take the risk and operate services,” he said.
All Kerala Bus Operators Forum General Secretary Johnson Payyampally said the government should stick to the increased fares until the fare revision commission submits its report.
The KSRTC has worked out plans to make available 3,200-odd buses — 2,200 Ordinary ones and 940 Fast-Passenger ones — for services. “The inter-district buses will be operated based on the demand as we are not expecting much patronage. The KSRTC was able to operate only 1,637 Ordinary buses on June 1 and 1,667 on Tuesday,” a top KSRTC official said.
Meanwhile, the Ordinary buses began operations on Tuesday with the old bus fares and carrying passengers on all seats. The fare increase was introduced on May 20 to offset the loss owing to social-distancing norms. With this, the minimum fare on the Ordinary buses in the State is ₹8 and 70 paise for every subsequent km.
