Mohali: Private school bus operators threaten strike on April 28

The President of Mohali School Welfare Association, Gursharan Singh said on Thursday that around 800 school buses are being operated by private operators in the district, which give employment to around 2000 people.

“Some bus operators were issued the challans to the tune of Rs 30,000. A few buses were even seized,” Singh said.

He added that the Covid pandemic had already hit the bus operators hard and they had started plying again only recently, after a gap of around two years.

He said, “The operators invested around Rs 2 lakh to get their buses uo and running again. This drive of the administration is an attempt to scare the bus operators and it shall not be possible for us to run buses under such circumstances.”

He further said that the transport department had not updated its software to keep a record of school buses due to which the operators were facing problems and challans were being issued without any fault of theirs.

“The fault is of the transport department and not of the bus operators,” he said.

Contacted, the secretary of Mohali district transport authority, Sukhwinder Kumar, said that the drive was initiated under ‘Safe Vahan’ scheme and it had nothing to do with the software.

“We have to check the buses to keep an eye on the safety of the school students,” he said.