In trouble

Cuttack, June 6: A writ petition has been filed in Orissa High Court challenging inclusion of a route between Puri and Bhubaneswar in the cluster route in Puri town for city bus service under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban and Rural Development (JNNURM) scheme.

The petition, filed in the vacation court, contends 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.

Secretary of the Puri Private Bus Owners Association Loknath Pani and two other members — Subash Kumar Panda and Bharat Kumar Nayak — said: “Inclusion of the route as a city route is against objective of the urban transport policy envisaged for implementation under the scheme.” The petition is expected to be taken up for hearing on June 8.

According to the petition, the route between Puri and Bhubaneswar is over crowded 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 the new air-conditioned deluxe buses are also not granted permits on 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 stated.

Claiming to be operators on the route from Puri to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, the petitioners said they would be “greatly prejudiced and affected” by inclusion of the route between Jagannath Temple and Master Canteen as area of operation on the city route of Puri.

The government had entered into agreement with the Dream Team Sahara for operating the city bus service in Puri town that included routes — Beach Road to Konark, Jagannath Temple to Konark and Jagannath Temple to Master Canteen in Bhubaneswar. This apart plying of city buses included different cluster routes in Puri town along with the bus route for Jagannath Temple to Master Canteen.

The action to include the route under the cluster routes in Puri town is to give “undue favour” to the operator for plying city buses in inter-regional route to make profits at the cost of adversely affecting the permit holders for the route, the petitioners said.

To implement the city bus project under the scheme, the Centre had appointed one Urban Mass Transit Company Limited (UMTCL) for helping in preparation of project report and detailed design of operational plan.

UMTCL had conducted the route identification study in Bhubaneswar city and Puri town and suggested the routes. “No survey has been conducted by it for the route between Puri and Bhubaneswar since the route is not within the city area,” the petition stated.

The Centre had provided financial assistance for purchase of 100 buses for Bhubaneswar city and 25 buses for Puri town with respective project costs of Rs 1,650 lakh and Rs 330 lakh to run city bus service in both the urban locations under the scheme.