Cuttack, June 21: Orissa High Court today issued notices to the state government on a writ petition, challenging inclusion of a route between Puri and Bhubaneswar in the cluster route for a city bus service under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban and Rural Development (JNNURM) scheme.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik is scheduled to inaugurate the city bus service in Puri town tomorrow.

Puri Private Bus Owners’ Association secretary Loknath Pani and two other members — Subash Kumar Panda and Bharat Kumar Nayak — had filed the petition. It alleged that “the very inclusion of the route between Jagannath Temple (Puri) and Master Canteen (Bhubaneswar) as city route is against the objective of the urban transport policy envisaged for implementation under the scheme”.

“Acting on it, the division bench of chief justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra today issued notices to the state transport department, but adjourned hearing to next week,” petitioner counsel Pravakar Behera told The Telegraph.

“Our basic contention is that the route between Jagannath Temple in Puri and Master Canteen in Bhubaneswar is an inter-regional route and cannot be said to be a route within the urban area of either Puri or Bhubaneswar,” Behera said.

Claiming to be existing operators in the route between Puri to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, the petitioners claimed that they would be “greatly prejudiced and affected” by the inclusion of route between Jagannath Temple (Puri) and Master Canteen (Bhubaneswar) as area of operation in the city route of Puri.

According to the petition, the route between Puri and Bhubaneswar is overcrowded and all private operators are plying their vehicles within a short gap of two to three minutes. The state transport authority is not granting new permits between Bhubaneswar and Puri citing ‘oversaturation’. Even new air-conditioned deluxe buses are also not granted permits in this route because of “traffic congestion”.

“In this background, Dream Team Sahara cannot be allowed to ply the city buses on this route merely on the basis of agreements. Moreover, if Dream Team Sahara is allowed to ply the vehicles on this route it would create unhealthy and uneconomic competition among the holders of permit,” the petition further contended.