Abhijith N Kolpe

Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru

Mangaluru, Sep 11: The city buses as well as the luxury buses incurred heavy losses during the lockdown period. The buses were at a halt for nearly three months which led to the downfall of the transport system.

There were about 325 city buses functioning in the city before the lockdown, but now only 200 buses are on the road functioning on a daily basis.

Even today, the number of buses plying in the city have come down drastically. The owners face a lot of challenges to run them in the city. Since the lockdown was imposed, many buses have been parked at one place and have not been used to date.

As the buses were parked for several months, it is an uphill task for the bus owners to maintain them as the chances of buses having mechanical issues are more. Parking for long without usage might lead to damage to the engines of the buses.

Speaking to Daijiworld, City Bus Owners’ Association president Dilraj Alva said, "The buses in the city have witnessed bad losses. The condition of the buses parked for long without running for months has caused severe damage to their engines. Even today, we can see several buses still parked since the lockdown. I own five buses, but only three buses are on the road and the other two are parked. The reason behind this is that people are using less public transport."

"We demand to waive off six-month road tax which will help us in many ways," he said.

Owner of Maroli buses, Sudesh Maroli said, "As the buses were off the road for three months, the collection has been very low. I own 10 buses among which only eight buses are running. We have paid our conductors and drivers even in the last three months during the lockdown. They are back to work, however, there is no much work now. Even the shift timings have come down to 7 am to 7 pm. The condition of the buses was poor as the batteries of all the buses were completely drained. I had to spend over Rs 3 lac for the repair. We demand the government to waive the road tax which we are bound to pay in this tough situation."

Owner of Ramdev bus, Vijay Krishna Puthran said, "We need nearly six months for the situation to come back to normalcy as there is not a lot of collection. The government has not waived off the road tax. Waiving the road tax will definitely help us. Due to the fear of coronavirus, many of our passengers have begun using their own vehicles. Compared to June, there has been a considerable rise in the number of passengers using public transport. After Deepavali, we are expecting a good rise in the number."

Even luxury buses have faced a similar fate. There are several luxury buses plying to various parts of the state from Mangaluru. Even these buses were off roads for several months and ended up incurring heavy losses due to the lockdown.

Managing partner of Durgamba bus, Sadanand said, "We are gradually picking up since the bus services started. Nearly 14 luxury and express buses are running to Bengaluru and Mysuru. But, we still need two months more to come back to normalcy. People have started travelling now, unfortunately, there is no full booking. Only 25 to 30 per cent of seats are occupied. As the demand increases, we will start running the remaining buses. The maintenance of the buses after three months of lockdown has worsened the condition. Cleaning the buses and maintenance of the engine itself was an uphill task.”