Private bus operators urge West Bengal govt to extend deadline of fitting tracker device till Dec

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An organisation of private bus and minibus operators urged the West Bengal Transport department to extend the deadline for fitting vehicle-tracking devices with emergency buttons till December this year.

State Transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty told PTI, the government was mulling over the move to give some more time to the bus operators and working on a solution but extending the deadline for such a long time is not possible.

General Secretary of West Bengal Bus and Minibus Owners Association Pradip Narayan Bose at a press meet here on Tuesday said that since the private bus industry has become a "sick one", more in the wake of the Coivid-19 pandemic and lockdown in past two years, it would be next to impossible for the operators to fit their vehicles with the location tracker and emergency button within a month's time.

"Private buses and minibuses carry 85 per cent of the daily commuters in the city and elsewhere in the state. We have been giving amenities to passengers even incurring operating losses due to the Covid situation and rise in fuel prices. Still the state is not considering repeated pleas of the bus owners body to either spare us from installing the device, or bear the expenses. In the present situation, we are requesting the state to extend the March 31 deadline to December 31 to enable us to mobilise our resources for procuring the devices of any registered product," Bose said.

He said if the state went ahead with the March 31 deadline making it mandatory for every stage carriage fit the mobile tracker when being granted the CF (certificate of fitness), then more than thousand buses will stop plying within a month's time with at least one-two staying off the road every day.

Reacting to the pleas by the private bus operators, Chakraborty told PTI "I will urge the bus operators' body to keep eyes open for new notification by government which will be out soon, to accomodate some of their concerns. Our chief minister Mamata Banerjee is sympathetic to the problems faced by every resident of the state, who include the bus operators. But they have to be a little more flexible. Fitting the mobile tracker and an emergency button is imperative for the safety issue of everyone concerned, including bus employees."

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He further added extending the deadline till end December is not feasible and it may lead to appeal for further extension when December ends and puts in jeopardy the entire project which is more crucial for the safety of women and children.

The minister said "we are in talks with registered makers of mobile tracking devices and emergency buttons to lower down the cost of the devices for the private transporters."

In its letter to the department sent last week, the association had said "On behalf of the operators, we appeal to the state government not to implement the notification and if it is mandatory, request you to arrange for the tracking device and panic button for the vehicles and bear all expenses related to its installation."

Moreover notification has been issued only for buses and minibuses and not for other passenger vehicles like e-rickshaws, bike taxis which don't have either a specific route or lack route permits," the letter had argued wondering why trackers and panic buttons have been made mandatory for buses only.

The West Bengal government has been working on the plan to install vehicle-tracking devices with emergency buttons for some time and March 31, 2023 has been set as deadline for fitting such devices for stage carriages like buses.

The transport official said as per earlier notification issued by the department buses, minibuses and taxis registered till 2018 must have location-tracking devices fitted on them by March 2023 otherwise their permits and cf (certificate of fitness) will not be renewed.

Vehicles registered in 2019 or later must have these devices installed immediately or will face similar situations.

The vehicle tracking system allows keeping tab on vehicles on desktop computer, laptop, tab or android phone with the help of satellite and monitor movement of vehicles and where they are parked.

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