Bengal bus operators reluctant to lease vehicles for polls, complain about ‘poor’ payments

The EC and various state government departments acquire passenger buses, minibuses and other vehicles along with drivers and helpers during various elections to transport the security and polling personnel to booths and take them back.

Kolkata: Private bus operators of West Bengal are not willing to let their vehicles acquired by the Election Commission for use in polling, claiming that the payment they receive is poor.

The EC and various state government departments acquire large passenger buses, minibuses and other vehicles along with drivers and helpers for several days during various elections to transport the security and polling personnel to booths and take them back.

Ahead of the seven-phase polling between April 19 and June 1 in the state, the EC recently raised the fee for hiring vehicles but the bus operators dismissed it as “not enough”.

“Our employees have to stay for not less than 72 hours. Every driver or conductor has to be on their toes for 24 hours for three to four days. And they get only Rs 250 as wage daily,” General Secretary West Bengal Bus & Minibus Owners’ Association Pradip Narayan Basu told PTI.

The condition becomes more serious in rural areas where options are less, he said.

Basu asked, “Will a hotel or an eatery give them any concession for doing election duty?” The bus owners claimed they are yet to get the fees for the vehicles acquired by the state police during the panchayat polls held in May 2023. A section of the bus owners received less than the amount promised by the district authorities and the transport department for the same period, with an assurance that the remaining portion would be paid soon.

Five private stage carriage owners’ bodies had requested the Chief Electoral Officer’s department for a 20 per cent hike from the 2019 hiring rate of Rs 1,900 for every bus for a day, but the EC raised the amount to Rs 2530, Basu said.

For minibuses, the EC increased the rate to Rs 2090 in an order issued on March 12.

“We cannot sustain with such a meagre hike. If you consider the price index since 2019, we need to be given Rs 3,500 at least if not Rs 4,000 for every bus and Rs 3,000 if not Rs 3,500 for every minibus,” he added.

General Secretary of Joint Council of Bus Syndicate Tapan Banerjee demanded that every bus employee be given Rs 500 as daily wage apart from a night allowance.

“You are working with humans, not robots. Most of our staff are reluctant to go on election duty. They will be willing to work if their hard work is properly compensated,” Banerjee said.

The bus owners’ organisations also demanded that their employees be given the chance to cast their votes via postal ballot as is done by the polling personnel.

Banerjee said, “Night allowance is also needed. We pay their bills from pocket. Tell us what we get after letting our vehicles for this democratic exercise.”

He demanded that 75 per cent of hiring charges be paid in advance and the rest within 15 days of submitting the final bill after the election, be it for Lok Sabha or panchayat.

He said 80-85 per cent of buses or minibuses of the existing fleet are requisitioned for elections with 10-15 per cent of them already being hired to ferry central forces that have reached the state.

Some 32,000 buses ply in the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Area (KMDA) comprising the city and its neighbourhood.

Five associations of bus owners have formed the ‘Gana Paribahan Banchao Committee’ (Save Public Transport Committee) and requested an urgent meeting with the CEO’s office and state transport department to redress their grievances.

An official of the CEO’s department told PTI that talks can surely be held but owners cannot ask for non-requisition of vehicles for the country.

“On February 22, senior EC officials discussed the issues raised by the transporters at a meeting with their representatives. Accordingly, a notification was issued on March 12 considering all aspects of their demands,” the official said.