Bhubaneswar, Aug. 17: The All Odisha Bus Owners’ Association has postponed its proposed indefinite bus strike, which was scheduled from August 26.

The association took a decision to this effect after the state government had assured their delegation that demands to increase bus fare would be considered sympathetically.

A delegation, led by the association’s general secretary Debendra Kumar Sahoo, met transport and commerce minister Subrat Tarai at the secretariat and asked the government to consider their demands for an immediate hike in bus fare in the wake of frequent increase in fuel price in the past one year.

Tarai said: “The proposal to hike bus fare will be sent to a technical committee, headed by transport commissioner, for evaluation. Whatever the committee decides, the government will consider it.”

Sahoo said: “It has become impossible to ply buses on roads because of the frequent hikes in fuel price. Unless the government hikes the bus fare, the bus owners will not be in a position to run the buses.” The last hike in bus fare had taken place on November 1 last. “In the past one year, diesel price has been hiked by around Rs 4.70 per litre. As the price of diesel has come to Rs 54.43 per litre, about 3,700 buses remain off roads now. Many bus operators will prefer to keep their bus off roads,” said Sahu.

Now, the fare in ordinary buses is 55 paise per kilometre, while it is 58 paise per kilometre in express buses, 76 paise in deluxe buses and 93 paise in air-conditioned buses.

“We hope the government will hike the fare of the buses by 4 paise to 5 paise per kilometre. If it refrains from hiking the fees, we will have no other option but to go for an indefinite protest,” said a member of the association.

He said a mechanism should be developed to hike bus fare every time fuel prices went up.