TURA: Thousands of passengers from Garo Hills are being compelled to pay high fares in public transport after transport operators decided to raise ticket rates even after a fall in diesel price over the last few weeks.
Students, many of whom are coming home for Christmas vacation, are the worst affected.
“We were shocked to know that operators have increased the bus fare from Shillong to Tura by Rs 150 in just two months. This is daylight robbery,” said a group of angry young university students who had booked tickets to Tura.
Anger is palpable among other travellers who have questioned the rationale behind the move to hike fares.
“We can understand if they had increased ticket fares by about Rs 10-20 due to the rise in fuel prices sometime ago, but to do so by over a hundred rupees clearly means someone is profiting at the expense of travellers,” an angry passenger said. The steep rise in fuel prices some months ago has since eased across the country.
Some of the affected passengers had even approached social groups which in turn had petitioned the district administration to ensure regulation of fares but that had apparently failed to yield result.
There are allegations that transport operators are taking advantage of the holiday season when thousands of passengers travel to and from the district.
The hike in tickets has been across the board with fares raised for travel to both Shillong and Guwahati and also Siliguri by bus, Xylo and Sumo.
Night bus operators have raised fares by Rs 100 for Guwahati, Rs 150 for Shillong and Rs 230 for Siliguri.
When contacted by The Shillong Times, a bus operator claimed that the hike was due to the rise in cost of insurance, vehicle registration and maintenance. It is worth mentioning that while insurance is once-a-year affair, vehicle registration fees once paid do not need to be done again for some years.
Meanwhile, with major transport operators raising their ticket fares a chain reaction has begun to take place with even local operators starting to charge higher prices for travel.
WGH bus operators unhappy
Meanwhile, public bus operators in West Garo Hills have expressed unhappiness over the recent order issued by the Transport Department directing them to charge fares only as per the government approved rate.
Earlier, the West Garo Hills Bus Association had announced new enhanced fares which were turned down by the authorities.
In their letter to the Commissioner and Secretary of the Transport Department in Shillong, the vehicle operators pointed out that maintaining the government approved rate would mean a rollback from the current fare being maintained since 2012.
“The fare rate from 2012 to October 2018 was Rs 1.43 per km. If we maintain the rate approved by the government, it would mean a rollback to Rs 1.05 per km, which is unfair for us. How can we run our vehicles at a loss” claimed vehicle operators.
The operators pointed out that other than the rise in the prices of petrol and diesel, road tax, sale tax and insurance, including the prices of vehicle parts and tyre have increased.
The vehicle operators appealed to the authority concerned to bring a solution considering the points put forward while cautioning that they may have to stop running their vehicles to cut further losses if the problem was not addressed.
