Diesel price hike: Bengal faces show down threat

Transport bodies for indefinite strike if fares not raised

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's populist posturing may get a reality check over recent diesel price hike as transport bodies in the state on Friday issued shutdown threat if fares were not immediately raised.

Joint Council of Bus Syndicate, that controls over 37,000 buses in the state, has alredy issued a statement, threatening to go for indefinite strike from Monday onwards, if fares are not raised in the meantime.“In my entire life I have never seen such a sharp rise in diesel prices. The state government has to increase the bus fares with immediate effect because if it is not increased most of the buses will stop plying. Already several buses have stopped plying. If the state government does not allow fare hike, we have no other option other than going on an indefinite strike,” said Sadhan Das of Joint Council of Bus Syndicate.

 

Bengal taxi association and Kolkata taxi drivers association jointly too have declared a shut down of services for three days from September 20. Other transport bodies are also expected to make similar announcements in the next few days.

“With an increase of Rs 5 per litre it is impossible to run buses now. The state government should leave its ignorance in the matter of increasing fares because if the fares are not increased we the bus owners will simply die. Today, we are having a meeting then we will announce our final decision,”Aboshesh Da of minibus union said.

The UPA government on Thursday had announced a hike in diesel price by Rs s5 a litre and restricted availability of subsidised cooking gas cylinders per family to six per year. The decision came into effect on midnight Thursday.

Incidentally, the transport bodies in the state has been demanding a fare hike for the last one year. The government has so far managed to stick to its populist policy. However, this time immediately after the steep rise in diesel price, all the transport bodies today jointly put its demand and met state transport minister Madan Mitra.

West Bengal transport minister Madan Mitra is likely to hold a series of meetings with transport authorities tomorrow as well, although there has been indication of any fare hike yet. “We are also launching all out protest against the Centre's decision. I will only request everyone not to take a radical decision overnight, so that common man suffers,” Mitra said.

Meanwhile, both ruling Trinamool Congress, which incidentally the second largest ally of UPA government and Left parties in opposition, has decided to hit the roads to mark their protest against Centre's decisions.