The Kerala State Private Bus Operators' Federation has demanded that the minimum bus fare be fixed at Rs.5 and the kilometre rate at 60 paise.
A central committee meeting of the federation held here on Wednesday said the Central government's decision to give the right to fix petrol prices to oil companies and the move to do away with the control regime for diesel prices in near future would lead to total anarchy.
At a press conference, federation president A.K. Abdullah and general secretary Lawrence Babu said the Central and the State governments should desist from steps that would wreck the private bus industry which was in dire straits following the diesel price hike effected on June 26. When the diesel price went up by nearly Rs.3 on February 27, the State government, on March 6, reinstated the old bus fares. However, as more than 50 per cent of the bus passengers were students and as their fare was not increased, the bus owners had to suffer a dip in their income.
The federation leaders said that in a situation when the Central government was withdrawing subsidies in all sectors, the bus operators could no longer afford to give any kind of concession in fare to students or other passengers. With the hike in fuel prices, the bus owners could not operate bus services anymore suffering huge losses and the ball was now in the government's court, they said.
The government, during its discussions with the private bus operators on March 9, had promised that a Tariff Regulatory Committee would be set up by including economic experts and transport consultants, in order to hike the bus fare on the rational basis of income and expenditure. It was highly objectionable that the government still had not got down to doing this, they said.
The federation leaders said that at Wednesday's central committee meeting, the federation decided to take up the issue with other sister organisations in the private bus industry to decide their future course of action and agitation programme.
