In Dandinashivara ZP constituency (Turuvekere taluk, Tumkur dt), various party candidates had promised the voters of getting a KSRTC bus facility sanctioned to Kurubarahalli Koppa village. Retired school teacher H K Nanjamma, hailing from Hullekere village, had contested as a BJP rebel candidate but lost to the BJP official candidate. Her son G Ramesh, a businessman in Bangalore, had worked as her campaign manager. As he and his mother had promised a bus facility, he took up the initiative even though his mother lost. Ramesh was impressed by the overwhelming response of the voters. His mother garnered 3,874 votes. On Monday, Ramesh hired a KSRTC bus from Turuvekere depot and brought it to the village, which drew a huge response from the villagers who even performed puja for the smooth running of the bus service.
The villagers have been walking 4 km from Kurubarahalli and 4.5 km from Koppa to Kadaba town to board buses. Students even bunk classes because of the lack of transport facility, said a villager. The hired bus will run four times daily for the public and students in particular. Ramesh will pay Rs 17,500 daily for the hired bus.
For the full report in the New Indian Express, click here.
A whole lot of villages, like the ones cited in the report, across the state (and, even the country), are, even in this 21st century, physically cut off from civilisation for want of good public transport services. And, it is not as if the villagers can't garner the resources for providing the services themselves. Rather than facilitating that, which is what one would expect of a government, the ones we have have instead invoked the license-permit raaj to deny the villages even this basic necessity, supposedly to protect the revenue interests of its monopolies, the state SRTC's.
Can there be a bigger crime than that? No wonder the villagers look for the earliest opportunity to migrate to a city - a few like Mr Ramesh making it big; but, most landing up doing menial jobs and living in slums.
It is high time the people got together to liberate themselves from the clutches of the government, and demand that they end their monopoly in the field, by opening it up for entry by private players, all on a level playinng field, and duly overseen by a properly constituted regulatory authority. For more on the subject, click here.
Muralidhar Rao
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the TOI report
Ramesh asked for a bus at the KSRTC depot; but the manager refused to provide one to be run on local routes. Ramesh told TOI he’d ask for a bus from the Tumkur depot. If that’s not possible, he’ll hire a private bus to continue his protest against poor bus service. For the full report, click here.
The question that begs an answer is why are people still tolerating the government's denial of this basic service, either by providing it on its own, or, if it can't do it (for whatever reasons), by facilitating private operators by removing the hurdles that are there before them presently. Apparently, the people are still in the 'mai-baap sarkar' mind-set, where they can't think beyond the government doing everything for them - the bane of 60 odd years of Nehruvian Socialism.
just get out of people's way!
Home and Transport Minister R Ashok said that the city bus service will be extended to smaller towns too following increase in the incidents of robbery and harassment allegedly by autorickshaw drivers. “When the Transport Department introduced bus service in Tumkur, there was stiff resistance from autorickshaw drivers. But we went ahead with the programme. Now the buses are operating and the people are happy. After covering district headquarters, we will introduce the bus service in taluk headquarters also,” Ashok explained.
For the full report in the New Indian Express, click here
In Mangalore, Udupi and a few adjoining districts/ areas, where, for some reason, the government couldn't push its nationalisation agenda (when it went about it), private players have been providing excellent bus services, contributing greatly to the economic development of the region. As compared to that, the rest of the state has languished because of the government's 'dog in the manger' policy. All they have to do is to get out of people's way, and everything will fall in place. Since they won't easily, perhaps the PIL route has become imperative - check this