Rash driving is essentially a policing issue. And, in this aspect, our BMTC drivers can give any call centre vehicle driver a run for his money alright. In fact, not a single day passes in Bangalore without some report or the other about rash driving by BMTC drivers, very often including fatalities. Even yesterday’s and today’s papers are full of the gory details.
I was once moderating a discussion session sometime back when a traffic constable clearly stated that it was a lot easier to discipline private sector operators since any fine levied had invariably to be borne by the driver himself. As compared to that, a traffic constable dare not pull up a BMTC driver for fear of invoking the wrath of the union. Now, if in spite of it all, the private players are seen to be as bad or worse than the SRTC lot, it is because the artificialities prevalent under the present licensing regime, does not facilitate the entry of organized sector players like TATA’s and TVS into the field, leaving it all in the hands of just the riff-raff, many of whom are police and transport department officials themselves. An enquiry into the BLUELINE operations in Delhi has quite established this already.
The answer lies in facilitating the entry of the likes of TATA’s into the field. Only they have reputations to guard, and consequently, they will do justice to any job they undertake. And, public transport services is too vital a sector not to have the likes of them as players.
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