After a persistent pursuit, through registered letters, RTI queries, appeals, etc, targeted primarily at the Commissioner for Transport in Karnataka, he has finally got the the RTO, Koramangala, to write to me officially to say that I cannot be issued a license to operate 'majilu vahanagalu' (meaning 'stage carriage', I guess) in the city. And, that if I want any help with bus services, I may approach the BMTC. The letter copy is attached. I presume my interpretation is correct.
Now, I would like to pin a large share of the blame for the city's increasingly difficult traffic conditions on the poor public bus transport services, which is resulting out of the monopoly status of the government service provider, viz the BMTC - check this, this and this. And, I can't understand why monopolies should continue in today's world, particularly in fields like public bus transport services. And, it is very much within the state government's powers to open up the field to competition from private players, which is in fact what the S M Krishna government had done in the case of cities other than Bangalore, leading to the birth of Bendre Nagara Saarige in Hubli-Dharwar, and similar services in other cities, benefitting all the stake-holders concerned, more specifically the commuters.
If there is enough support here, I shall make out a fresh petition to the government, and perhaps follow it up with a PIL, if need be.
Muralidhar Rao
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BMTC Contract trips
Also, Should BMTC be running contract trips that too using JNNURM buses to the tech parks and private companies at the peak hours when the general public is not adequately served?
Inadequacy?
when the general public is not adequately served?
How do you prove that it is the tech park buses that are the cause of that inadequacy?
Private Transport [Praja Sarige] may not be a panacea as such
I agree that transport is a real bottle neck in the day to day life of our city of Bangalore. The topic is a pin prick for us in Praja especially the IT crowd. However allowing public transport may not be a panacea as such.
The examples of private school busses come to my mind. Recently this topic of crowded school transport appeared in the news papers. Pictures of children being packed like sardines have appeared in these reports.
Murali’s effort is laudable. He has succeeded in this herculean task of getting a reply from this government though in the negative. I support murali in his fight to get whatever he wants from the government.
I do not know however why Bangalore cannot try to emulate a “BEST” like example of the metropolis called Mumbai, for its public transport system, even with allowing private players like Murali sir.
Why "esp the IT crowd"?
Anatharam sir - it is unfair to put IT crowd color on this demand supply gap in Transportation space. It is a basic need for all those who can't affod to live right near their place of work. At a high level:
The needs are distance, money and time.
These needs are NOT being fulfullied to city's satisfaction today.
Aggressive outsourcing, or tight regulatin driven open market seem better solutions, because BMTC had had a run for a decade now, with good but not good enough results. If you want to to raise the bar (of our expectations), unofrtunately, monopolistic ways will not help.
Murali - please do run with this, with time you should get support from some silent readers.
valid point
@saravankm, IDS
The matter has been discussed before on PRAJA - check this
furthering their strangle-hold
Seeing an almost three-quarter page ad (notification no:SARIE 94 SAEPA 2010 dt 13/05/11) by the Transport Dept (GoK) in the New Indian Express on Sunday, the 15th May, I became a little curious, and bothered to look deeper into it. The operative part, as I understood read as below:
Notwithstanding anything contained in the above schemes, the private operators are allowed to operate their services as city services as per the conditions of the permit granted by the respective transport authorities upto a radius of 20 km from the city of the revenue district headquarters excluding Bangalore city published in notification number HTD134TMA 2003 in Karnataka Gazette extraordinary part - IVA no. 1732 dtd 31/12/2003 and notification no. TRD247SAEPA 2004 published in Karnataka Gazette extraordinary part - IVA, nos. 606 dtd 1606 are hereby modified for barring the grant of fresh permits. However the permits already granted and issued as per the notification no. HTD134TMA 2003 dtd. 31/12/2003 are saved with periodical renewals from time to time.
So, apparently, when fuel prices are shooting up by the day, leading to people inevitably looking more seriously at switching to the use public bus transport services, instead of figuring out how best to facilitate that by roping in the services of the private sector also, the government is only interested in the pursuit of its narrow interest of furthering its monopoly hold on the sector, and through that the vested interests of the various mafia's involved.
The sad part is that very few amongst the public can see through this game, even if it is staring them right in their face.
Public Transport
Dear Mr. Muralidhar,
I feel the only course left now is to file a PIL for loosening this stranglehold.
K.V.Pathy
PIL, what should it pray for?
Murali Sir,
Your freindly jabs against me are noted. BTW, waht do you plan to pray for in your PIL?
-Syed