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MANGALURU: Those who have travelled in private city buses must have seen how conductors throw tickets in the air instead of handing it over to passengers. However, soon, this would become a thing of past if a direction given by the district administration is followed by the bus owners strictly. For, Dakshina Kannada district administration has given a month’s time to bus owners to introduce ticket machines in all the buses.

From January 1, as per deputy commissioner’s order, conductors of all private buses should issue tickets through machines only. At present, out of 350 city buses, around 100 buses have ticket machines that costs between Rs 8,000 and Rs 9,000. A ticket machine costs anything between Rs 8,000 and Rs 9,000.

The step was taken following complaints from citizens. Deputy commissioner, A B Ibrahim, had discussed the issue of conductors not handing over tickets to passengers at a road transport authority meet in June. Later, Ibrahim gave direction to bus owners for the introduction of ticket machines in all the buses by July end. However the deadline to introduce ticket machines has been extended to December 31 based on a request made by bus owners, said DC.

"All private buses should introduce ticket machines that give details of the travel route and amount. It will be made compulsory in all the buses from January," said Ibrahim. Another reason for introducing such a system is to ensure that passengers travelling in city buses carry tickets. Sources said that passengers may not demand tickets as there is no checking conducted like it is done in government-run services. In KSRTC, there are surprise checks, wherein if a commuter is found without ticket, both passenger and conductor are fined.

Mangaluru city bus owners association general secretary, Vijayakrishna Puthran, said that the process of introducing ticket machines for conductors is on. "We will introduce ticket machines in all the buses. and are also training conductors to use the machines," he added.