Odisha: Passengers Left in Lurch as Private Bus Owners go for Indefinite Strike
Bhubaneswar: Thousands of passengers were on Friday stranded in numerous bus stands across Odisha as the state’s private bus owners went for an indefinite strike following collapse of their talks with the top officials of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) with regard to fulfillment of their certain demands.
At Baramunda bus stand in state’s capital city Bhubaneswar, passengers faced harrowing times as they did not get buses to travel to their respective destinations. Many people were found scrambling at the government bus ticket counters to book tickets. However, the limited number of government buses failed to accommodate the passenger rush.
Mamata Madhi, a student waiting to board a bus to Malkangiri, said only the passengers with online tickets were allowed to get in the buses while others didn’t have that privilege.
“I had booked my ticket in a private bus. As the private buses are now off the roads, I’m desperately trying to get a ticket in a government bus. However, I find that the government booking counters here have closed now. We are not informed why the ticket counters have shut down,” said Divanshu Mahant, a student who was waiting to catch his bus to Rairangpur in North Odisha.
The Odisha Private Bus Owners’s Association (OPBOA) has resorted to strike in protest against the state government’s decision to run its own buses from block headquarters to district headquarters under the Location-Accessible Multimodal Initiative (LAccMI) programme.
As per the OPBOA secretary Debendra Sahoo, it was earlier agreed that LAccMi buses will run from gram panchayat headquarters to block headquarters. However, the state government backed out from its promise and operated buses to block headquarters, thus causing serious losses to the private bus owners.
“We deeply regret going for an indefinite strike. There was no option left for us. We beg apology to the passengers for the inconveniences caused by our unintended strike. We are hopeful that the state government would come out with an open mind to discuss and solve our issues,” said Sahoo.
Odisha transport minister Tukuni Sahoo appealed to the bus owners to withdraw the strike.
“I appeal to the bus owners to call off their strike in view of the Dussehra rush of passengers. The state government will surely try to address their grievances,” said the minister.
Odisha has as many as 15,000 passenger buses. Of this, the private bus owners possess 14,000 private buses while the state government owns only 1,000.
