Report and Pics by Mounesh Vishwakarma
Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (RD/SP)

Bantwal, Aug 28:  The KSRTC drivers and conductors treat the student season ticket holders with contempt and derision. Whenever the bus gets additional passengers, they order such students to stand up and make room for other passengers. This happens in almost every trip.

It is apparent that most of the KSRTC bus conductors treat the student season ticket holders as an unwelcome nuisance on their buses.  Although these students travel by KSRTC buses with valid season tickets, the bus conductors seem to treat them to be taking a ride on their buses for free.

This is not a recent issue. This has been an experience faced by several season ticket holders, since the past many years. The student community is quick in reacting and organizing protests, whenever KSRTC authorities hike the fares. At the same time, it student leadership has failed to take up the cause of the students, who go through harassment and anguish on account of such rude behaviour on the part of the bus employees.

KSRTC authorities operates shuttle, limited-stop and express bus services.  The student season ticket holders are only allowed to travel in shuttle buses. KSRTC has, over the time, been reducing the number of shuttle bus services, which in turn, has caused severe hardships to commuting students.

Meanwhile, the parents of students residing in the neighbourhood of Aladka, near Panemangalore, here submitted a memorandum to state transport minister R Ashok and explained the problems they experienced in commuting in KSRTC buses.

The student season ticket holders normally travel in large numbers from 7.00 am to 9.30 am and from 3.30 pm to 6.00 pm, as the schools and colleges resume classes and wind up at the same time.  Despite the fact that the students have no other choice but to travel only in shuttle buses, sometimes, the bus drivers do not care to stop to pick up the students at a few bus stops en-route to their schools and colleges.  Even if the driver stops the bus briefly, he exhorts students to hurry, making the students to rush in.  Boys  somehow, are able to  get onto the footboard of the buses, while the girl students can barely get into the crowded buses, as a result of which, some of them often choose to take the next bus and others travel by taxis, thereby reaching their schools and colleges late.  Hence, the parents of the student season ticket holders are concerned about the fact that the student season tickets issued by the KSRTC with the welfare of the student community in mind, are not being taken in right perspective by the bus staff.

The parents of the student season ticket holders have urged the state to stop playing with the lives of the hapless students, alleging that on one hand, it introduces concessional facility for the students who commute daily on the state-owned buses, while on the other, it imposes restrictions on the students on availing the benefits thereof. 

The parents also pleaded with the state administration, to allow the student season ticket holders, to travel in state-owned express, limited-stop, rural transport, Suvarna Karnataka and all other KSRTC buses.