From Daijiworld's special correspondent
Panaji, Mar 16: The token strike called by the private bus operators in the state paralysed the public transport with people seen in a long queue waiiting for buses in the morning.
All 1,800 private buses plying along the routes criss-crossing the state went off the road today demanding hike in the ticket. Their action was a fall out of their continuous unsuccessful meetings with the transport minister Pandurang Madkaikar demanding hike in the tariff.
"Diesel has increased by Rs 10 and ticket prices are not touched. How do we survive," questioned Avinash Shirodkar, secretary, The Goa Bus owners association (TGBOA). The TGBOA spearheads the strike.
The bus owners clarified that this is just a token strike for a day and would go for indefinite strike, if their demands are not met. "Transport minister has called for a meeting on Monday. Let's hope that some solution comes out during the meeting," stated Shirodkar.
Major triangular route in the state – margao- Panaji, Panaji-Vasco and Vasco-Margao – remained unaffected with the strike as it is managed by state owned Kadamba transport corporation limited (KTCL). The village routes, however, were severely affected as they are served by the private buses.
The KTCL, which began a troubleshooting mission since morning, has asked all its staff to join back the work and has cancelled all the leaves and offs. ``we have pressed in all our 432 buses into the service. Even those buses undergoing minor repairs at the workshop were pulled out on the road," stated KTCL managing director Shrikant Naik.
Sanjay Borkar writes from Margao for Daijiworld News Network - Goa
Margao: Finally they took the step to carry out the indefinite statewide Bus strike from March 16, to draw the government's attention to hike the bus fares…
From the last seven months, confrontation between state government and All Goa Private Bus Service Owners' Association (AGPSOA) was going on, over the issue of bus fare.
The AGPBSOA had submitted a proposal to the government suggesting the ticket rate of Rs 5 for the first three kilometres travelled and 40 paise for every subsequent kilometre. At present, these rates are Rs 4 and 35 paise respectively.
In last seven moths, AGPBSOA had around 5 to 6 meetings with transport minister Pandurang Madkaikar. 'At every meeting, he gave assurances, we are all fed up of his assurances. The government has not agreed to our demands and for this reason we unanimously took a decision to carry out indefinite statewide strike,' said Avinash Shirodkar, general secretary of AGPBSOA.
The fact is that the AGPBSOA has around 1700 buses running on roads in every corner of Goa, while Kadamba Transport Corporation (KTC) has just 432-odd buses running. If the strike goes on, commuters will suffer for lack of buses on the roads. For which, KTC has decided to take the help from neighbouring states.
When contacted in the matter, Madkaikar said that “the AGPBSOA will never go on strike. If they go also, it will not affect people. Though they have called for a strike, I am sure that the 50% of private operators will run their buses on the roads. My experience tells me all this. They only serve ultimatums to government and nothing else. But we are fully prepared to tackle this problem."