BALASORE: Illegal plying of contract carriage buses from Balasore by private operators is hurting the revenue collection of the Transport department.
As many as 30 such illegal buses are plying from Balasore to different destinations in and outside the district, thus adversely impacting the revenue collection targets of the department.
These buses have the permit of contract carriage which means they can operate only if booked by a group of people for tourism purposes. However, these vehicles are plying on different routes on a daily basis like the buses having State carriage permit.
As per Government guideline, buses having contract carriage should not pick passengers from different stops and issue tickets. Moreover, these vehicles should place a display board mentioning ‘tourist bus’. But violating the norms, the buses are being run like the ones having State carriage permit.
Abhisek Panda, a bus owner, said illegal contract carriages are causing losses worth lakhs of rupees to the State Government. “Most of the contract carriages pay taxes for just 4-5 days for a certain distance in a month, leading to heavy losses to the Government,” he said.
Some private bus owners, who adhere to the fixed guidelines, expressed discontentment over the lack of action against the illegal practice. Prasant Kumar Barik, another bus owner, alleged that though the Transport department has issued instruction to the Regional Transport Office (RTO) to act strongly against the violators, private operators continue to run their vehicles without valid permit on certain routes.
“I have to bear heavy losses as one such bus, which doesn’t have valid permit, is plying on the same route of my bus within a few minutes difference,” he said.
Balasore RTO Bikash Choudhury said most of the private operators carry contract permit to ply buses temporarily as stage carriers and pick up individual passengers in case their vehicle having a valid permit breaks down. He admitted that there has been no crackdown on unauthorised buses plying from Balasore and no vehicle has been penalised for violating permit norms.