The 14,500-odd private buses that kept off the road since Friday demanding an increase in the minimum bus fare and the concessional fare of students started plying from Tuesday morning after the bus operators withdrew their indefinite stir.
The strike was called off following an appeal by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to the bus operators at a meeting with office-bearers of the Private Bus Operators Confederation, a forum of 12 private bus operators associations, in the Secretariat after the weekly Cabinet meeting.
At the meeting in the presence of Transport Minister A.K. Saseendran, Mr. Vijayan did not give any assurance on the two main demands of raising the minimum bus fare to ₹10 and increasing the concessional fare of students from ₹1 to 2.
The Chief Minister told the operators that it was the decision of the Cabinet to increase the minimum bus fare from ₹7 to 8 as recommended by the M. Ramachandran committee and not to raise the minimum bus fare of students from ₹1.
“At this juncture, the minimum bus fare cannot be further increased,” Mr. Vijayan told the operators.
Will consider plea: CM
When confederation chairman Lawrence Babu pointed out that the increase in fare of students in the subsequent stages would not give them any benefit, the Chief Minister said the decision cannot be revised and the demands would be looked into by the government.
