A year after the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19, transporters in Bihar are ruing their fate owing to declining passenger footfalls and contraction in business due to restrictions imposed on public transport and night curfew in the ongoing second wave of Covid-19 across the country.
“Only 10,000 buses are plying across the state as well inter-state routes as against the strength of 60,000 buses. The footfall of passengers has declined drastically in the last week owing to the rise in Covid cases. Transporters are now facing economic hardships again,” said president of the Bihar Motor Transport Federation (BMTF) Uday Shankar Singh. The BMTF is an apex body of transporters in Bihar.
Singh said transporters who have a big fleet of buses have curtailed plying their buses by almost half in different routes, be it Patna-Muzaffarpur, Patna-Darbhanga, Purnea and neighbouring states of Jharkhand and West Bengal.
“Last year, we faced nationwide lockdown when our business came to a halt. Things started improving a bit from October but now again we are facing the same ordeal. There is not even enough money to complete two trips in a day as the number of passengers has declined. There are also restrictions on seating while recurring costs of insurance, road tax, wages to staff have to be given. What to do?” said Mukesh Sharma, another transporter who is only running 12 buses now out of 25 buses he owns.
“The Mithapur bus stand is almost deserted now. Only a few buses could be seen,” he added.
Truck operators are the worst hit. “The surge in Covid cases has now forced truckers to shut their business. Labourers have left for their villages fearing getting infected while business orders mainly ferrying goods and other articles have reduced drastically over the week. Almost 25% of the total trucks operational in the state have gone off the road. More are likely to shut their operations because of lack of manpower, especially drivers and labourers to offload the goods,” rued Bhanu Shekhar Singh, president of Bihar state truck owners association.
He said there are 5 lakh trucks in the state of which 50% were hit hard by the government’s restrictions on 12-14 wheels trucks to ferry stone chips and sand while the rest are now hit by the fall in business due to the Covid-19 surge.
Giving another insight into the poor business in truck operations, Purshottam, an operator, said the government must give relaxations to the truckers to ferry stone chips and sand else this sector would not be able to sustain for long due to economic non-viability if the pandemic persists. “From where will we give road tax and insurance and loan repayment? It is totally unviable now to run trucks,” he added.
The transporters, especially bus owners, are upset with the state government for not putting curbs on the operationalisation of buses coming from New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. “At a time when inter-district traffic of passengers have fallen, buses from New Delhi and UP are coming with ease ferrying migrant labourers mostly. The majority of these buses have no permits and easily get through borders in connivance with local transport officials. Why are these buses not stopped at the borders where migrants could be tested and asked to use local transport to go home?” said another transporter, wishing not to be quoted.
Demands
In wake of the decline in business in the transport sector, the BMTF has demanded the state government should immediately give relief to the bus and truck operators by suspending road tax payment for at least two months as it did last year when there was a nationwide lockdown.
“We want that transport department should suspend road tax from bus and truckers for two months effective from April 2021. I will be writing to the transport department soon,” said BMTF president. Another BMTF member said transporters this time would look for legal options to seek relief if the state government does not suspend road tax and other charges.
Many transporters also felt the state government was shying from imposing full lockdown apparently to deny various sectors including transport to seek relief.
“What is the point of night curfew and restrictions on seat limit when passengers and business are almost negligible. A full lockdown is a must. That way we will have a claim on seeking relief,” said another transporter, seeking anonymity.
Transport secretary Sanjay Kumar Agarwal could not be reached for comments.
