A private bus in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 7: Private bus owners have deferred their proposed strike on August 9 to press for bus fare revision to August 20 following an appeal by transport minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi.

The minister issued his appeal this morning saying the agitation would hit the people hard at the time of floods. The bus owners had threatened a strike because the government was taking a long time to decide on a fare hike, which, they argue, was necessary in view of the rise in diesel prices.

“The government is looking into the report submitted by the technical committee regarding bus fare revision. The decision of fare hike will be taken sometime later. We have appealed to the bus owners to refrain from striking for the time being,” said the minister.

Spokesperson of the private bus owners’ association Debashis Nayak said their general body meeting was held this afternoon following which it was decided to postpone the agitation plan till August 20.

“We know the state is going through a bad phase as several areas have been flooded for the past few days. The situation will continue for a few more days. We do not want the general public to suffer. So, we are deferring our protest. But if the government does not take a decision by August 19, we will resort to the strike from the very next day,” said Nayak.

The private bus owners’ association has put forward a 10-point charter of demands before the state government including fare revision. Another major demand is formulating an automatic system of fare revision that would allow fare hike when the diesel price goes up and fare cut when the fuel rate is slashed. Besides, they have also demanded fare revision of town buses on the line of city buses run under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) and to stop the city buses from plying on the private bus routes.

“The JnNURM buses are meant for cities, but they are plying on the routes where private buses run and this affects the business of the later. We want these city buses not to operate on our routes,” said the owners’ association members.

The bus owners have been demanding a fare hike citing that there had been a fuel price rise of more than Rs 7.20 a litre since the last fare revision.

They complained that the government had been sitting on their demands for past three months. The minister has assured the bus owners that all their demands would be considered.