Mangalore: Krishna Palemar Warns Nationalisation of Bus Routes
The Hindu
MANGALORE, Jul 20: The much vaunted private public transport system in Dakshina Kanada faces the prospects of being nationalized in the larger interest of people. This would mean that the State-owned Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation would fill the void to provide public transport system in the district, if the threat held out by Minister for Ports, Inland Water Transport, and Environment J. Krishna Palemar is any indication.
Palemar, also the district in-charge Minister, expressed displeasure about the manner in which private bus operators were indulging in bus permit-related litigation rather than responding to the needs of people. Chairing his maiden Karnataka development programme review meeting here on Saturday, Palemar said that if the situation did not improve soon, nationalisation of routes would be the only solution left. The issue surfaced when senior divisional controller of KSRTC P.B. Karambaiah expressed his helplessness to introduce KSRTC buses from Ullal and Bajal to Mangalore to meet the peak hour rush in the morning and evening. Karambaiah said that KSRTC was ready to comply with the demand, but for a stay obtained by the private operators and a previous notification of the administration. Regional transport officer and secretary of Regional Transport Authority (RTA) D. Sadashiva said the problem was compounded by the fact that the operators were obtaining permits from the State Transport Authority (STA), which was overlooking the recommendations of the RTA. The High Court had upheld the notifications issued by the then chairmen of RTA to stop issuing fresh permits for city buses in 1991 and service buses in 1993.
Deputy Commissioner, M. Maheshwar Rao, also the chairman of the RTA, said the authority had requested the Surathkal-based National Institute of Technology – Karnataka to survey the traffic density in the city. The RTA had recently categorised the buses and regulated their entry to State Bank of India terminus based on their permits. This system needed to be tried out in the long run, he said.
When Palemar said that rules should not come in the way of ensuring proper transport system and that the earlier notifications of District Magistrates be scrapped, Rao said: “Any such move may result in chaos in the city’s traffic system.” The administration was merely regulating the entry of buses in some of the city’s most congested routes, he said.
Sadashiva told the Minister that the STA had issued 243 permits to bus operators to commence and terminate their services at the SBI terminus. Of them, 73 permits had been issued after the two notifications were issued in early 1990s. The colour coding experiment taken up by the RTA had succeeded in regulating the entry of non-permit buses to SBI terminus, he said.
MLA N. Yogish Bhat said that RTA cited rules when it came to helping people. The buses that operated to Sulthan Bathery were forced to idle there at the end of each trip owing to the schedules fixed by the authority. Instead, the buses could be permitted to go up to Lady Hill during that period. This would help people who would otherwise have to commute by autorickshaws, he said.
Palemar said he would have no qualms in taking up nationalisation of bus routes seriously with Transport Minister or Government if the situation so demanded. The KSRTC would be purchasing around 3,000 buses and 300 of them could be allocated to the district, he said.
The RTO the issue would be set right in three months once the NIT-K authorities submitted their survey report.