Bhubaneswar, May 16: Private bus owners today demanded a revision of fares in the wake of two successive hikes in fuel prices this month and threatened to go on strike from June 5 if their demands were not met.

"We will be forced to go off the roads from the midnight of June 5, because we are incurring huge financial losses," said All-Odisha Private Bus Owners' Association general secretary Debendra Kumar Sahoo. More than 13,000 private buses and 450 state buses ply across the state every day.

Bus fares were last raised in August last year, and it came into effect from September 1. The hiked was between 5 and 8 paise a kilometre. The revision was made after the bus owners had threatened to go on strike from August 20 if the fares were not hiked.

A delegation of the association today met transport minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi and submitted a 15-point charter of demands. They also handed over copies of the charter to the chief secretary and the transport secretary.

Among the demands is an automatic fare adjustment mechanism following an increase or decrease in fuel prices. Petrol has become dearer by Rs 3.13 a litre and diesel by Rs 2.71. This was the second increase since May 1, when petrol had become costlier Rs 3.96 a litre and diesel by Rs 2.37.

"We have been demanding an automatic price adjustment mechanism since long. But, the state government is sitting on the matter," said Sahoo.

On this, Majhi said: "We had formed a committee to study the working of the system in other states. The panel has submitted its report. The government will take a decision shortly," he said.

The other demands included publication of a list of drivers and conductors by the licensing authorities, renovation of bus stands across the state, financial assistance to the bus owners, who run their vehicles in the hilly and Maoist-hit areas and confining plying of buses running under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission to the urban areas. The association also opposed the state government's direction to install CCIV and GPS in all buses, saying it was not necessary<>.

In another development, activists of the CPI, CPM and the SUCI today took out separate protest rallies in the city, protesting against the fuel price hike. "The fuel price hike will hit the poor and middle class, because it will have an effect on the prices of essential commodities," said a Left leader.