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The issue of plying 37 KSRTC city buses in Mangalore city limits raised heated arguments at the regular meeting of Regional Transport Authority (RTA) at DC office here on Thursday.

Eight advocates representating private bus operators united together to oppose the KSRTC’s plea to allot permission for plying the buses on Thalapady-Suratkal, Kunjathbail-Mangaladevi and Mangaladevi-Bondel route.

KSRTC Law Officer Rajesh Shetty who spoke in favour of KSRTC asked Deputy Commissioner Subodh Yadav, who is also the Chairman of RTA, to issue permit for the plying of KSRTC city buses based on the public demand.

Citing the DM notification which prohibits the entry of buses to State Bank without license, he said that none of the proposed KSRTC city buses would enter into State Bank and so there is no question of traffic burden.

However, the advocates of the private bus operators’ counter argued by questioning that when there are more than 1,000 pending applications seeking permits from the existing operators since 1990, how come 37 applications submitted by KSRTC in the year 2008 have appeared in the agenda within a short span? The advocates of private bus operators also sated that 26 applications submitted by KSRTC are defective in nature. KSRTC has asked permission in each application for two composite services by the buses which is not acceptable, challenged one of the advocate.

Nationalised route issue

The issue of prohibiting permit to ply buses on nationalised route was also raised in the meeting. The private bus operators questioned KSRTC’s stand of not issuing licence and demanded for permitting the buses to ply on 10 routes. Some of the mentioned routes are Uppinangady- Melkar (13 km), BC Road-Melkar (3 km) and Belthangady-Guruvayankere (3 km) among others.

Addressing the reporters after convening the meeting, Deputy Commissioner Subodh Yadav said that decision about plying of KSRTC city buses and rest of the issues will be made with in 15 days.

KSRTC’s demand for plying buses

KSRTC has sought permission for plying 22 buses on Talapady- Surathkal route (242 trips), 9 buses on Kunjathbail-Mangaladevi route (81 trips), and 9 buses on Mangaladevi-Bondel route (54 round trips).