BENGALURU: Electrical short circuits in the starter device are said to be the reason behind the three BMTC buses catching fire in the last three months. Speaking about the bus fires in the three midi buses, V Anbu Kumar, Managing Director (MD), BMTC, said that the BMTC has come out with a strategy to prevent such fire accidents in future.
“To prevent electrical short circuits in the starter assemblies of the midi buses, the BMTC authorities have advised the drivers to not switch off and restart the engine at every traffic signal. This was being followed before to save diesel. The drivers have been advised to start the bus during the commencement of the trip and to only turn it off at the end of the trip. The starters overheat due to the repeated switching on and off and this was causing the blaze,” the MD said.
The electrical line and diesel line are next to each other in the starter assembly and in case of a diesel leakage, it lead to smoke and then fire. “Earlier the drivers used to start and stop almost 100 times in every trip in order to save diesel.
It is a mechanical failure and the BMTC regrets the inconvenience to commuters. Most of the midi buses have run about 4 to 4.5 lakh kilometers and are not old buses. The problem is because of a short circuit and the problem will be addressed,” the MD added. NS Nandiesha Reddy, Chairman, BMTC also said that inquiry is on about the fire accidents.
62 BMTC employees dismissed for protesting reinstated
Bengaluru: Around 62 permanent BMTC employees who were dismissed for staging protests and not reporting to duty in 2020 and 2021, were reinstated from Monday. The appointment letters were handed to them at the BMTC head office in Shanthi nagar. Around 1,400 employees from BMTC were dismissed for participating in the strike in December 2020. The employees had demanded to be treated on par with state government employees.
“Of the 1400 dismissed employees, 700 staff members have already been reinstated. There are about 400 employees who are yet to be reinstated and they will be given the appointment letters as and when their cases are cleared by Lok Adalats. The reinstated employees will be losing two increments ,” NS Nandiesha Reddy, Chairman, BMTC said.