Speakerphone politics: When Manpreet rang up PRTC MD for mini-bus operators
BATHINDA: Even as staff of staterun bus firms are protesting against an alleged mafia of the private mini-bus operators in the Bathinda region, finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal has been captured on video calling up the managing director of Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) to underline the operators’ “concerns”.
The call on Monday — made on speakerphone at a gathering where a number of mini-bus operators were present — came a week after the police booked a private bus operator for thrashing a bus driver of the PRTC at Rampura Phul near here. The video was shared by sources with HT. In the call to PRTC MD Manjit Singh Narang, Manpreet said the corporation’s general manager at the Bathinda bus stand, Surinder Singh, was “playing a negative role” and that the operators were being “harassed”. “PRTC union keeps beating up the conductors (of the private operators)... Wherever there is a permit, allow them to ply their buses.”
It must be underlined that the PRTC had — after an HT report last month — detected and taken off the roads 40 mini-buses plying illegally, and subsequently entered the local routes, within 25-km radius of the city, with its fleet of 20 buses. This led to a doubling of revenue from the Bhucho and Goniana routes.
As Manpreet batted for the operators in the meeting caught on video, also seen in one of the key private operators, Avtar Singh, who assured the minister that all the bus operators present in the meeting were “with Congress and not with Akali Dal”.
Manpreet in the call refused to touch the issue of timetable of buses, as per which the PRTC officials have been trying to fix equal durations of taking passengers at the bus stand.
Last week, the local PRTC officials also regulated plying of mini-buses on the Sangat route by taking off over a dozen buses that were plying illegally.
PRTC staff told HT, on the condition of anonymity, that they still face problems in plying staterun buses on the Sangat route due to skirmishes with private operators over timings.
When HT sought to contact the minister over the video, he was inaccessible despite calls and messages to his staff for two days.
INACTION ON ASSAULT
It is worth a mention here that, on Thursday last, the Rampura Phul police lodged an FIR against a private bus operator and his two staffers for thrashing a PRTC bus driver while on duty near the bus stand. Till date, no action has been taken as the local cops insisted they were “preoccupied with VIP duties”. Bathinda SSP Navin Singla’s personal intervention had led to the registration of the said FIR after PRTC officials had written to him.
PRTC REVENUE ON RISE Official figures reveal that PRTC losses in the Bathinda circle were reduced from Rs 9.66 lakh in January 2017 to Rs 1.8 lakh in August, primarily after streamlining of three local routes in the around 25-km radius where earlier only private buses plied. “There are 899 route permits in the Bathinda zone, most of which lapsed, and all these routes needed to be regulated,” said the PRTC general manager, Surinder Singh.
HT had reported that 90 % of the mini-buses of private operators were plying illegally with no permits on the Goniana route. Of 93 trips daily on the route, 67 were unauthorised. On the Bhucho route, 32 of 37 mini-buses (87%) ply illegally.