Roadways bus impounded by Delhi transport authorities, released later

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, December 9

A bus of the Jalandhar depot was reportedly impounded by the Delhi transport authorities for allegedly “not being able to produce the agreement copy of the Punjab Roadways with the Delhi Airport Parking Authority, which allows the entry of buses to the airport.

Passengers faced inconvenience due to the same as they reached the airport late. The Punjab Roadways authorities had to intervene to get the bus released and ensure that the passengers were dropped to their destinations on time.

The roadways authorities were reportedly told that their buses would not be allowed to enter the airport terminal and would be limited till the bus stand until they did not procure required documents from the airport authorities.

However, opposing the action of the Delhi administration, one of passengers, Jaspal Singh, who was travelling in the bus, told The Tribune that: “Government buses are being stopped but private buses are allowed to take passengers till the airport. The Punjab Government has started the PUNBUS service for the airport that too on affordable fares but it is being interrupted frequently on baseless grounds. The state government should take strict action against the Delhi transport authorities.”

The Punjab Roadways charges Rs 1,065 per passenger while the Indo-Canadian firm takes an amount of around Rs 3,000, including tax, from a passenger due to which a majority of the NRIs from the region prefers to take Punbus over private buses to the airport.

Meanwhile, General Manager, Punjab Roadways, Parneet Singh Minhas, confirmed that the bus was impounded by the Delhi authorities, but no passengers faced difficulty as they were dropped to the airport well on time.

He said he had fixed a meeting with the Delhi Airport Parking Authority and the Volvo bus service was likely to resume within a day or two.

“For the past few days, passengers were being dropped 500 m away from the airport near a private hotel, from where they were taken to the airport by the shuttle service,” he added.

Meanwhile, this is not the first time the Delhi Government had impounded a bus run by the Punjab Government. In the past few months a number of Punjab buses were challaned on the ground that the vehicles had state carriage permits, which allows them to bring passengers only till the Inter-State Bus Terminal (ISBT), due to which the roadways faced a loss of over Rs 10 lakh.