Bhubaneswar: The All Odisha Bus Owners' Association, the umbrella body of private bus owners, decided to go ahead with its strike from Wednesday after their meeting with the state government failed to yield any results on Tuesday.

However, the association will take further decision on its course of action by Wednesday afternoon when it is scheduled to have another round of dialogue with the government. One of the major demands of the association is reversal of the government's decision to expand the city bus services beyond the cities.

The state transport department on Wednesday held a meeting with the association representatives. But, the members said the discussion failed to yield any result as no officials of the housing and urban development department were present in the discussion. The department manages the city bus service in various towns of the state, including Bhubaneswar.

The association has been demanding a separate policy for the city bus service. The association members said that though the city bus service was meant to ply within the cities, the buses started plying on the state highways and national highways.

"The private operators of city bus services are getting buses free of cost from the state government and have started a competition with the private bus owners, who procure buses by bank loans. We are not against the bus service, but if the government wants a fair competition between us, it must ask the city bus service operators to procure the buses by paying money," said the association's general secretary Debendra Sahoo.

Sahoo said the decision to keep the buses off the road was taken on Tuesday evening. "We unanimously decided not to ply buses from Wednesday morning. The housing and urban development department has promised us to take up the issue on Wednesday afternoon. Further decision will be taken after the meeting," said Sahoo.

According to the association's decision, as many as 17,000 private buses will join the indefinite strike and stay off the road. The service first started in Bhubaneswar in 2010 and later extended to Cuttack and Puri. Subsequently, the service was introduced in Berhampur, Sambalpur, Balasore and Koraput.