Nine buses of Eden Transport Private Limited were attached on Friday for its failure to pay royalty to Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (BSRTC).

The Patna district transport office seized the vehicles on the directive of the court of Patna divisional commissioner. In a case filed by the BSRTC against Eden Transport Private Limited, the divisional commissioner had ordered that the buses of the private operator could be seized up to the value of dues.

BSRTC administrator Vijaya Lakshmi Nadendla claimed that the buses of Eden Transport Private Limited were attached against pending dues of over Rs 1 crore. “We attached the buses after Eden Transport failed to respond to repeated pursuance by BSRTC for making the pending payments,” said Vijaya Lakshmi.

Eden Transport had entered into an agreement with BSRTC on March 14, 2011 for running 78 buses (70 non-AC and eight AC) on seven routes in the city. The buses were launched on May 15, 2011. Another deal was sealed between the two in January 2011 on operating 40 inter-city express buses on the Patna-Chhapra-Siwan route.

The private operator last year filed arbitration cases with state transport department’s arbitrator alleging that BSRTC had not paid subsidy to it. But the BSRTC administrator, Vijaya Lakshmi, claimed that the Eden Transport had lost the case. “Yet, it did not pay the pending royalty,” she said.