After Tamil Nadu, fares revised in Puducherry too
The Puducherry administration hiked the bus fare here with effect from Monday.
By : migrator
Update: 2018-01-22 18:50 GMT
Puducherry
According to sources, the hike would however be only in the buses plying to Tamil Nadu from Puducherry and not in the town buses in Puducherry and Karaikal regions. It may be noted that the administration had hiked the bus fare here on the Deepavali day and following stiff opposition from different political parties, it was withdrawn. A committee was constituted to decide on the issue.
Meanwhile, capitalising the bus fare hike in Tamil Nadu, the fare in the buses to Tamil Nadu were hiked. A decision on bus fare hike in other routes would be taken shortly, the sources added.
DMK opposes hike
Taking strong exception to the bus fare hike here, DMK (North) Convener S P Sivakumar on Monday urged Chief Minister V Narayanasamy to withdraw it. He also urged the Chief Minister to drop the move to hike the fares for some other buses. In a statement here, Sivakumar said the Congress government could do no good to the people because of the hindrance from the Centre. At this juncture, the government should not do any harm to the people, he added.
The bus fare hike is a severe blow to the people who are yet to recover from the power tariff hike, drinking water hike and imposition of tax for garbage clearance, Sivakumar said adding that the Chief Minister could have consulted the alliance partners before taking the decision to hike bus fare.
Rise in state transport ticket rates challenged
While public protests have been intensifying over the bus fare hike, the Madras High Court has been moved seeking to quash an order of the State, hiking bus fares from January 20 onwards.
The Public interest litigation moved by V Munikrishnan is likely to be taken up for hearing on Tuesday. The petitioner had submitted that the State without considering peoples welfare had resorted to the overnight hike. Noting that 80 per cent of the people in the State depended on buses and a majority were from the poor and middle class, he said the government has been spending public money for achieving their political goal while shifting the burden on the public by saying financial crisis in the transport department. He also submitted that people are now forced to spend 25 per cent of their salary on transport while they were already suffering due to GST and demonetisation.
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