Tags:
Journalism of Courage
With private operators taking over the reins of the state’s passenger transport services, a relieved Chhattisgarh government is now busy selling off its grounded fleet of 455 Roadways buses, of which only 282 are functional.
These were buses handed down to Chhattisgarh after the bifurcation of the Madhya Pradesh State Roadways Transport Corporation. While private operators are using the bus stands built by the MP transport corporation, the buses have remained off the roads since January 1, 2003 and are now being auctioned off.
Over the past three days, 69 buses have been sold, mainly to junk dealers in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi, for a price ranging between Rs 13,000 and Rs 2 lakh. Nearly 50 buses have been sold from Raipur and Bilaspur stations alone.
Of the 22 buses auctioned at Bilaspur today, six were bought by private operators and the rest by scrap dealers, fetching Rs 15 lakhs.
‘‘In the first phase, only condemned buses will be auctioned after fixing the minimum sale price. At two places, where the buyers tried to under bid, the auctions were postponed,’’ says Shailesh Pathak, Managing Director of Chhattisgarh Infrastructure Development Corporation, the present custodian of the MPSRTC property.
Together with the sale of buses, the CIDC’s immediate priority is to get the 2,700-strong surplus staff of the Madhya Pradesh State Roadways Transport Corporation rehabilitated, mainly through VRS packages.
Till now, 1,270 employees have applied for voluntary retirement and the rest are ready to be sent on deputation to other departments. Over 90 employees have also applied for participation in the auctions to avail of the five percent discount scheme on buying the buses.
‘‘We are trying to motivate the employees to avail of the VRS package since their adjustments to other departments will depend upon availability of vacancies. Of the surplus staff, 751 are conductors, whose skills are not in demand in any of the government departments,’’ says Pathak. In order to release the VRS package, the CIDC requires Rs 50 crore, of which the Finance Department has already made Rs 30 crore available to the CIDC.
Payments under VRS will be made from Feburary 14 next. The CIDC requires another Rs 1.7 crore to pay the salaries of the surplus MPSRTC staff this month, who have not been paid wages for the past seven months.
