The Dakshina Kannada Regional Transport Authority (RTA) postponed its meeting, primarily meant for issuing permits to Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) to operate city buses in Mangaluru under JNNURM, for the fifth time in a row. RTAs elsewhere in the State have already granted permits to KSRTC to operate city bus services.
The initial meeting was fixed on March 30, which was postponed to April 20 in order to allow people to give their feedback on bus routes. Later it was postponed to April 22 and thereafter indefinitely due to gram panchayat elections. It was fixed for June 25, which again got postponed because the Superintendent of Police was unavailable.
Allegations
Nagarika Hitharakshana Samithi president G. Hanumanth Kamath said that given the frequent postponements, allegations that the RTA works to protect interests of private operators at the behest of politicians rather than serving public interest, appears to be true.
Both responsible
Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim, who is also the Chairman of the RTA, said both KSRTC and private operators were responsible for the present mess and admitted that he was under tremendous pressure from both the sides.
KSRTC is adamant to operate only on high-density routes while private operators have been strongly opposing it.
District in-charge Minister B. Ramanath Rai had recently advised KSRTC to go for a mix of routes — high-density as well as less-serviced, but the KSRTC was unrelenting, Mr. Ibrahim said.
Asked why the RTA meeting was getting postponed frequently, Mr. Ibrahim said he did not want another meeting to end in disagreement and wanted everything settled before the meeting was convened. The next meeting would be convened sometime in mid-July, he said.
