6,000 Punjab bus permits to go

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 15

Transport companies in which former Punjab Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, his associate Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon and Congress leader Avtar Henry have a stake, are among those whose bus permits are to be cancelled. In all, 6,000 odd bus permits are being cancelled on the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. 

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While the court orders were only for the cancellation of mini bus permits, a list of all permits/licences issued since 1997 are being reviewed by the Transport Department as recommended by the Advocate General’s office. On March 8, orders were issued to all four Regional Transport Authorities to prepare a list of companies with permits to run mini buses, AC coaches, super integral coaches and HV AC coaches and of transporters plying buses on inter-state routes covering short distances up to 15 km. Sources said while some mini-buses were being run "in collusion" with an officer in the Transport Department (who retired recently), the AC coaches were owned by politicians of Punjab’s two main traditional parties.

The sources said the process to cancel the permits of companies plying buses on routes on which only the state transport undertakings are allowed (monopoly routes) have already been initiated. The mini bus operators, who have violated the provisions of permits by extending their routes, will also have to face the music. 

"Most of them, top politicians or a former Transport Department official, have an indirect stake," said a senior official tasked with the cancellation of the permits. 

Directed by the court to revisit the transport policy and cancel permits issued in violation of the transport policy, the department has asked the Regional Transport Authorities to place the permit holders in two categories — those plying buses on monopoly routes and those plying on essential routes in rural areas.

"Where there is just one bus operator on a single route, we will cancel the permit at a later stage so as not to inconvenience the public. In case the state transport undertaking is already operating buses on a particular route, permits to private operators will be cancelled immediately," said a senior official. 

Already, the state transport undertakings are to launch the rural bus service soon.

Though the state government was asked to cancel these permits earlier, the Transport Department had been delaying the cancellation process. Though the HC had pulled up the government in January this year, seeking an action taken report, it was only three days prior to the  declaration of the election results that the process was initiated.