Why are people taking it lying down?
Valley transporters lose Rs 30 lakh every strike, curfew day
Srinagar: With strikes and undeclared curfews becoming more prevalent, Kashmir’s transport sector is feeling the pinch. Around 1500 commercial mini buses that ply within the Valley suffer losses of more than Rs 30 lakh on every strike, curfew day owing to halt in their services.
Showkat Ahmad, member of Western Mini Bus Association told Rising Kashmir that this sector has been the worst hit because of strikes and undeclared curfews as losses in this sector cannot be compensated when strikes are called off.
“Our earnings are dependent on daily commuters who avail our services, and once a strike is there everything is put to halt,” said Showkat adding that estimated earnings from a mini bus plying in Srinagar is around Rs 2000 out of which a good percentage goes into fuel, taxes and maintenance.
The worst hit are the old city operations carried mostly by Eastern Mini Bus service which caters to the city as well as suburban areas like Buchpora, Ahmad Nagar and Hazratbal.
Mini buses enroute to old city areas have to suffer more as the situations remains tense in some of the areas forcing the operators to call off their services.
“There is always uncertainly on how the day will progress and this year too due to elections the situation in old city has been volatile forcing us to limit our operations,” said Nazir Ahmad, driver of a mini bus adding that at times they have to take longer routes to reach their destination which again adds to the fuel expenses.
Nazir said that they are the major victim of strikes, curfews and restrictions imposed during the past 20 years.
“In past 20 years we must have grounded our services for more than three years, and this surely is a huge loss to this sector,” said Nazir adding that no one is even bothered to compensate this loss and this has now directly affected our family lives and our standard of living has gone down considerably.
The total number of Mini buses registered with the office of the Regional Transport Officer Kashmir is 3500, however out of these 1500 are commercial that carry passengers and the rest belong to different government departments, schools and other Nongovernmental organizations.
In towns like Baramulla, Anantnag and Sopore the mini bus operators also report of losses due to strikes and curfews.
(Rising Kashmir)