Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (SP)

Bantwal, Oct 18: Competition between staff of private buses and the ones run by Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) on Vittal-Peruvai-Manila route has hotted up of late. After private bus staff assaulted government bus employees on Friday October 17 and obstructed them from discharging duties, KSRTC buses went off the roads briefly.

The fight erupted at Pakalakunja in Manila village. Relating to the incident, complaint and counter-complaint were registered against each other at Vittal police station. While KSRTC staff complained that private bus employees from Adyanadka named Gireesh, Rakesh and Sunil beat up KSRTC bus driver, Abdul Sha Doddamani and staff, Madhu G J on Friday morning, private bus driver, Gireesh, alleged that the above two KSRTC employees had roughed him up and posed life threat.

The private bus staff objected to the KSRTC bus staff action in not driving away their bus at 7.55 am as scheduled from Pakalakunja. After verbal frictions, private bus staff, it is gathered, threatened KSRTC bus staff. The passengers however, questioned as to how the private bus, which was to begin its journey from Bavalimoole at 8.20 am, reached Pakalakunja before 8 am. It is learnt that KSRTC staff, who had initially decided to resort to flash strike, changed their mind, as students of various schools and colleges seated in the bus, many of them attending examinations, would have been put to problems. After students were dropped off at Vittal, the driver got admitted to hospital and filed police complaint. Thereafter, all the government buses moving about in the area stopped plying, and employees of these buses went to Vittal station to urge the policemen to protest them from harassment unleashed on them frequently by belligerent private bus operators. After the policemen assured them of support, they started operating buses again.

KSRTC B C Road and Puttur depot managers, Ismail and Jayashant, law officer, Narasimha Sharma, and others visited Vittal police station. The daily commuters on these routes blame the regional transport office officials for allotting time slot for these buses that are too close to each other to give room for any comfort.