Pvt Bus owners oppose state govt's suggestion to scrap commission system of payment

Kolkata, Nov 19 (PTI) Private Bus owner associations in Kolkata on Tuesday opposed the West Bengal Transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty's suggestion to scrap the commission system of payment of bus drivers and conductors.

They said the transport department should talk to all stakeholders before suggesting scrapping of the commission system of payment.

They said the owners have no say in the recruitment of driver-conductor and the system about their wage payment process is decided by unions.

The Joint Council of Bus Syndicate and West Bengal Bus and Minibus Owners Association also said owners of the traffic rule-violating vehicles were being "unfairly targetted" instead of drivers though the owners have no control over their recruitment.

Joint Council of Bus Syndicate general secretary Tapan Banerjee told PTI that the Transport minister had urged them to scrap the commissioning system citing it as one of the major factors behind rash driving and overtaking among buses at a meeting last week but "we had underscored the need to strengthen the overall infrastructure, not by any cosmetic measure." Banerjee said the unions demanded immediate clampdown on illegal passenger vehicles, plying without any authorisation in certain routes which includes some buses which don't have the route permits.

Another association official Pradip Narayan Bose said, "The government should ponder over all issues instead of going for tokenism which will not solve the problem. For instance, scrapping of the commission system without talking to all stakeholders will not work. We have had 500 meetings with the transport minister and his department officials to address the ailments plaguing the sector. Did these yield any result?," he added.

The unions said they are looking for a positive response from the government since the meeting on November 14 in which both transport minister and Urban Development minister Firhad Hakim were present along with senior transport and police officials.

The transport minister had earlier said that in case of death of any person in a bus accident, murder charges will be slapped against the errant driver. PTI SUS RG