Private bus operators on Sunday demanded an independent regulator to fix their fares and refused to return to roads unless the government okayed a fare hike.

The regulatory body should be along the lines of the one that decides power tariff, the operators said. It should assess the market realities and factor in various cost components such as fuel price, road taxes, and maintenance cost to arrive at a fare structure, they said.

So far, the state government has fixed bus and taxi fares.

“It is impossible to return to roads in the existing fare structure,” Tapan Bandyopadhyay of the Joint Council of Bus Syndicates said. “The government should leave the task of fixing fares on a regulatory commission.”

On May 29, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had said that buses would be allowed to run with all passengers seated (standing not allowed) from June 1.

She had earlier said buses could run with only 20 passengers on board. Operators had rejected the proposal then, too.

It will not be viable to run buses if passengers are not allowed to stand, operators said.

So far, only state-run buses have been plying on select routes.

“The government, too, is incurring losses. Now, buses will be allowed to run to full seating capacity. But standing will not be allowed on buses. Hand sanitisers have to be given to passengers and masks are mandatory,” the chief minister had said.

Close to 9,000 private buses ply in Calcutta and adjoining areas. Bus fares were revised last in 2018.

It will not be feasible to run buses even with full seating capacity because most bus owners have been struggling for the past two months to pay EMIs on loans they had taken to buy the vehicles, apart from bearing maintenance cost, private bus operators said on Sunday.

The government should make arrangements to waive certain fees, including that of permit renewal, apart from revising the fares,” Rahul Chatterjee of Bus Minibus Samannoy Samity said. “It is a question of survival.”

Private bus operators had earlier proposed a fare revision with the minimum fare ranging from Rs 15 to Rs 20.

At present, the minimum bus fare is Rs 7.

“We have already increased the fleet strength of state buses. Next week, we will review the situation and decide on the next step,” a transport department official said.