Bus operators’ threat to jam wheels: Jolted NMC babus ‘assure’ to clear dues today itself

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Aapli Bus
Nagpur: With the flashing of the report pertaining to operators threatening to halt bus service in city over non-payment of their dues by Nagpur Municipal Corporation, the jolted babus of the civic body have woken up and launched damage control exercise.

According to sources, the NMC administration has ‘assured’ the bus operators of clearance of October dues by 4 pm of Thursday. “If not paid the dues, the bus operators would be free to take a decision regarding halting of the bus service in city,” the NMC administration reportedly said.

The civic body authorities have further assured to make payment of November dues by next Monday. Sources said that if the October dues are cleared today, then the operators could sustain the bus service 3-4 more days.

Now, all eyes would be on the “assurance” of NMC administration as well as the threat of bus operators to put brakes on the bus service if….

It may be recalled that Nagpur Today had on Wednesday published a report titled “Bus service may come to grinding halt as operators threaten wheel jam over non-payment of dues” wherein it was stated that the Red Bus service in city may come to a grinding halt as the private operators running the bus service have threatened to jam the wheels over non-payment of dues by Nagpur Municipal Corporation. In a one line letter to Municipal Commissioner and Transport Manager, the three bus operators have issued an ultimatum to the civic body to either pay up their dues or face the wheel jam. “Operational break down due to no funds expected anytime. For your information and necessary action,” was the content of the one line letter.

According to Transport Department sources, pending dues of Rs 30 crore are to be given to the private bus operators by the civic body. For the month of October alone, Rs 30 lakh each to be given to the operators. The full amount (around Rs 30 crore) for November and December is due. Apart from these pending dues, the civic body has also defaulted on payments due to Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd (DIMTS), Green Bus operator, SIS and Unity.