Students protest to get bus passes from PRTC

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, August 11

Students of the regional centre of Punjabi University protested at the college gate here today, followed by a march to the District Administrative Complex over their demand to get PRTC passes.

The students, under the banner of Punjab Students Union (Shaheed Randhawa), handed over a memorandum to the tehsildar, which they initially wanted to hand over to the Deputy Commissioner.

They claimed that the PRTC had stopped issuing passes to students as they wanted to provide advantage to the private bus owners as well as earn profits for itself. 

They claimed that unfortunately, the government had failed to redress the grievance of students who come from far off areas to study in colleges.

As per norms, students of colleges, ITIs and other technical education institutes are issued bus passes at concessional rates whereas students from Class I to X are issued free passes. 

Similarly, women and employees of civil secretariat who are 60 years or more are supposed to be issued passes at half rates and concessional rates respectively.

Rajwinder Singh, one of the protesters said, “Bus passes to college students are issued across the state except in Bathinda, which is a citadel of the Badal family, members of which are also owners of Orbit Aviation that enjoys excess advantage of bus timings, besides having monopoly over numerous routes. The government will have to issue the passes or face the wrath of students.”

“In the absence of issuance of bus passes and less government-run buses on roads, the college students, at opening and closing time of college, find less options on many routes, including Bathinda–Faridkot on which Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal’s confidant and Muktsar Planning Board chairman Dimpy Dhillon enjoys advantage over bus timings. A number of students come from far off areas and remote villages. Many of them belong to poor or marginal families who cannot spend much on tickets but passes are not issued to them,” said Bismandeep Kaur, leader of the union.

She added that several incidents of clashes between students and private transporters had been witnessed in the state in the past many years.

PRTC official Gurcharan Singh could not be contacted, however, Tehsildar HS Goldy said, “We have received a memorandum from the students. We will look into their demands. The memorandum will be handed over to the Deputy Commissioner.”