KOCHI: The efforts of Interstate Bus Operators Association (IBOA) to put the state government at the receiving end, through the ongoing indefinite strike, received a setback on Friday with Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) deciding to operate additional services from Bengaluru to far-flung areas of the state.
In order to mitigate the weekend rush, KSRTC has deployed an additional 28 services apart from the regular 48 services. The services to Kozhikode, Kannur, Thrissur, Ernakulam and Kottayam saw a huge rush of passengers. However, KSRTC did not initiate any new service from the state to Bengaluru on Friday.
P M Sheraf Mohammed, KSRTC executive director-operations, told Express the corporation is monitoring the peak hour rush and has enough fleets to meet the emergency requirements.
“As per our data, Saturday normally won’t have much hike demands. If the regular services are filled, we can start extra services to and fro. On Sunday, we will have around 36 additional services for which online booking has already started,” he said.Whereas, the corporation will stick to its regular service on weekdays. “As the rush is relatively low on weekdays, we will start new services only if the need arises. We are offering super fast and super deluxe buses in most of the additional services. Additionally, we have expanded boarding points apart from existing areas to facilitate better services for the passengers,” said Sheraf.
KSRTC benefits
The indefinite strike also proved to be beneficial to cash-strapped KSRTC. On an average, every fully booked additional service to Bengaluru is fetching around `50,000, as per official sources. “As there are more than three services during the past few days, more than `1.5 lakh has been collected,” said an official of Ernakulam depot.
Meeting postponed
The meeting between Transport Principal Secretary and national leaders of Bus and car Operators Confederation of India (BOCI) has been postponed to July 1.
No advance booking
Affirming their firm stance on the strike, IOBA has officially requested RedBus, the online bus ticketing platform, to stop accepting any bookings till they withdraw their strike.