Around 300 school buses are expected to go off the roads on Friday as the School Bus Operators Association has decided to suspend services. They allege harassment by the Administration regarding installation of speed governors and increased permit fee. Even though we have installed speed governors in 60 per cent of the buses,the Administration is not willing to grant us more time to complete the job. Each instrument costs around Rs 10,000,which is not within our budget. Yet we installed them according to the Administrations orders. We plan to go on an indefinite strike as the officials have overlooked our demand and threatened us with impounding the buses, said Manjit Singh Saini,president of the association. The bus operators are also miffed about the permit fee which has been increased from Rs 650 to Rs 25,000. Alleging that the Administration was devising ways to harass them,the bus operators have decided to not pay the amount. Saini added that even those buses which had installed speed governors would not operate from Friday. The Administration,meanwhile,seems in no mood to relent this time. Talking to Newsline,Home Secretary Ram Niwas said: We have already given them ample time. They were asked to install speed governors by December 2008 but the deadline was extended till March because CTU buses too did not have speed governors. All CTU buses are now equipped with the instruments,but they still want further extension. We are not going to give in to their demands at any cost this time. As a large number of students will face inconvenience owing to the strike on Friday,the Administration,as preventive measure,has decided to increase the frequency of buses plying on the grid route. Schools,however,have expressed helplessness in coming up with a solution for the impending inconvenience other than informing parents about the strike. Since we cannot run buses on our own,we have asked the parents to manage somehow, said an official of St Kabirs School,Sector 26. Reema Dewan,principal of Delhi Public School,said they were planning to suggest car pool to parents by giving them the contact number of students staying in a common neighbourhood. But this too will take a day or two. Till then,the parents will have to fend for themselves, she said.
