Kolkata, Sep 19 (IANS): More than 50 lakh commuters in West Bengal continued to face a tough time on the third day of an indefinite strike by bus operators demanding a fare hike.

The bus operators and the government are to meet Wednesday.

In a bid to force the government into increasing bus and taxi fares, the Joint Council of Bus Syndicate, one of the largest bus operators in the state, went on an indefinite strike from Monday.

This follows a hike in diesel prices by Rs.5 a litre.

"We know the commuters are facing trouble. But we are helpless as we can't run the buses by incurring heavy losses," said Sadhan Das of the bus syndicate.

The central government last week hiked diesel prices and capped the supply of subsidized cooking gas cylinders to six per family a year.

Although, the state government pledged to ply more government buses to maintain normalcy, the few hundred government buses were in no way able to substitute the 40,000 private ones that are off the roads.