Fuel costs more now but private and minibus owners have decided against demanding a hike in fares. They feel only bus conductors and drivers stand to gain from it.

Instead, said Swarnakamal Saha, president, Bengal Bus Syndicate, they will submit an alternative proposal to the state transport department, whereby errant bus drivers will pay the penalty for traffic-rule violation from their own pockets.

This will help curb accidents caused by rash driving and violation of traffic rules, he asserted.

State transport minister Subhas Chakraborty is slated to convene a meeting with representatives of bus owners? associations by June-end in view of the diesel price hike.

About 8,000 buses ply on 95 city routes daily, and over 28,000 workers are employed in various capacities in private buses and minibuses.

Syndicate members said during the past two-and-a-half-year period, diesel prices have been raised seven times by the Centre and now, it constitutes 58 per cent of the cost of running a bus, against 10 per cent 12 years ago. Then, the diesel cost per litre was Rs 7.27.

Welcoming the decision of the bus syndicate, city traffic police said about 4,000 people meet with accidents on city roads every year and about 500 of these mishaps are fatal.

According to the syndicate, every bus-owner shells out Rs 4,000 a month to pay fines for traffic-rule violations or rash driving. CITU, the CPM-affiliated trade union, has imposed this burden on bus-owners.

Since the penalty does not affect errant drivers in any way, they never bother to correct themselves and the cases of traffic-rule violation and rash driving continue to rise.

Saha said the daily fuel expenses on each bus is up Rs 104 a day after the recent diesel price rise. If bus-owners were relieved of the burden of paying fines, the fuel cost rise could easily be cushioned without revising fares.

But president of the bus staff union Bani Dattagupta, who is also a state committee member of CITU, rejected the proposal outright.

He said: ?We will not accept this. We can, only if bus-owners introduce wages on a km-basis for drivers and conductors. The low percentage of available road space, hawkers on pavements, pedestrians on carriageways, the ever-increasing count of buses and, above all, the service conditions of bus workers, have made traffic rule violation inevitable.?