KOCHI: Time 3.55 p.m.
A private bus on the Fort Kochi-Aluva stretch with all its seats occupied comes to a halt at Aluva bypass.
The crew declares that the vehicle will not enter the town and will instead go straight to the bus station. All passengers are told to alight and board the bus behind for the rest of the journey, which, they are told, will be free though they have already paid for it.
All passengers, except one who said he was headed for the bus station, complied. It turned out that the passenger was a Motor Vehicle Inspector (MVI) in plain clothes on a drive against errant private buses. He issued a check report and left the scene with the licence of the driver as soon as the vehicle reached the bus station.
“Never in my career had I witnessed such a thing. There were aged passengers who had great difficulty shifting buses in the middle of the journey, but they had to comply nevertheless,” said B. Shefiq, the MVI who booked the bus crew.
He added that it was not that the bus was behind schedule either as the driver had wasted two to three minutes at three bus stops en route to keep in with the arrival time.
This was one of the eight incidents of violations detected by a team of nine Motor Vehicles Department officials (three MVIs and six AMVIs) in plain clothes during a drive against private buses in the wake of widespread complaints against the manner in which they were operated.
The officials boarded nine buses in three selected routes — Fort Kochi-Aluva, Ernakulam-Kakkanad, and Ernakulam-Chittoor Ferry — from various city points between 2.30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Check reports were issued against workers of all buses except one who complied with rules.
The drive was supervised by Deputy Transport Commissioner K.G. Samuel, Ernakulam Regional Transport Officer (RTO) P.H. Sadik Ali, and Enforcement RTO M. Suresh.
Shocking instances of gross violations like swapping of positions between the driver and the conductor midway though the latter has no licence, signal jumping, using mobile phone while driving, asking passengers to board and alight in a dangerous manner without bringing the bus to a complete halt and that too in the middle of the road to stop other buses from overtaking were reported by the officials.
Conductors of seven buses had no valid conductor licence. Besides, there were no door checkers in six buses, and workers were not in uniform. In most buses, there was no separation between the driver’s cabin and passengers.
Licences of drivers were seized in three cases. Sources said the Ernakulam RTO would take serious action against the owners of the errant buses by presenting the cases before the Regional Transport Authority. The drive will continue in the coming days.
