more-in Minister for Cooperation ‘Sellur’ K. Raju defended the bus fare hike announced by the State government on Friday by stating that the hike was unavoidable and has been kept to a minimum. Speaking to the media here on Saturday, he said that Tami Nadu had better quality of buses, but the ticket prices were lesser despite the hike, compared to nearby Karnataka, Kerala or Andhra Pradesh. He said that when the bus fare was increased last time six years ago, the price of diesel was around ? 43 per litre, but it has gone up today to around ? 64 per litre. “Similarly, the cost of spare parts for maintenance of buses has gone up. The government is also purchasing new buses to improve the quality. We need money for all this,” he said. Pointing out to the recent protests of Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) employees demanding adequate revision of their salaries, Mr. Raju said that such demands cannot be met without increasing bus fares. “The government has not made the decision willingly, but out of compulsion to meet the crisis situation,” he said. Stating that the hike was minimal in the range of just a rupee or two, he said that the value of such money has come down so much that even people seeking alms did not prefer to accept them. Blaming Opposition parties for unnecessarily making the fare hike an issue, he said that public would appreciate the decision to hike. Commuters shocked The State Government’s decision to upwardly revise the bus fare after six years resulted in heated arguments between the passengers, particularly the labourers, and the conductors in almost all routes on Saturday. As the hike has led to the upward revision of 40% to 60% of the existing fare, the conductors had tough time in tackling the arguing passengers. Whenever the arguments went out of control as the passengers criticised the crew for collecting an exorbitant fare for travelling in the pathetically maintained vehicles, the buses had to be halted on the roadside for a couple of minutes until situation becomes conducive. Passengers from lower middle class and the labourers, who have to reach their workplace every day on buses, could not digest the increase in bus fare as they did not have any means to meet the recurring additional expenditure. Though most of the passengers had understood that the bus fare hike was inevitable with the skyrocketing fuel prices, they argue that the increase should have been done over the years periodically. “The passengers’ outburst is due to the sudden hike in one go,” the commuters opined.

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