123 Kolkata: The state govt on Thursday proposed to do away with the commissioning system in private buses to rein in racing vehicles. The move came two days after an 11-year-old boy returning from school on a scooterette fell victim to a deadly cocktail of racing buses and road hazards on a Salt Lake road. Incidentally, this is not the first time such a proposal was made. Similar proposals were made on several earlier occasions but there were no concrete results.
"We are setting up a standard operating procedure where there will be no commissioning system. The state transport department will soon issue a detailed notification. Anyone who wouldn't comply with the SOPs will have their licences suspended," said Firhad Hakim, who chaired a meeting between the state govt and bus owners' associations.
At the meeting, it was also decided that the state govt will include traffic education under the Safe Drive Save Life module in the school education system. A senior official of the transport department said traffic education will be part of the syllabus in primary and secondary education.
TOI wrote on Thursday how the decades-old commission system was the main reason for buses racing on the road, where drivers get 14%-15% and conductors are paid 8%-9% of the ticket sales. Hakim, however, didn't specify if a fixed salary structure for conductors and drivers will replace the commission system.
Thursday's meeting was held at Nagarayan Bhavan in Salt Lake, where state urban development minister and KMC mayor Firhad Hakim chaired the meeting in the presence of state transport minister Snehashis Chakraborty and transport secretary Soumitra Mohan, alongside Kolkata Police commissioner Manoj Varma, Bidhannagar CP Mukesh Kumar, and representatives of multiple bus owners' associations. The meeting lasted a little over one hour. Transport minister Chakraborty said the meeting was conducted under the instruction of CM Mamata Banerjee. Hakim added: "The CM called us up twice while the meeting was going on to know the developments."
Transport department sources said a new transport monitoring system was on its way, which will be a combination of electronic surveillance and GPS-based mobility mapping. "This will help in rationalising routes and solve the current problem where there is a complete demand-supply mismatch on a majority of bus routes," said an official.
The SOPs for bus drivers will include checking tyre pressure, brake systems, and the condition of the clutch and gear, among other things. "The buses non-compliant with the mandatory fitness test will be heavily penalised," said the official.
DGP Rajiv Kumar has been entrusted with the work of conducting a survey on the number of buses on different routes and what should be the actual distribution. "The SOPs will include regular eye and health check-ups of the bus drivers. We are also discussing some safety measures like the installation of railings in front of schools and tweaking their dispersal timings," said Hakim.
Bus owners stated that they are in agreement with Hakim, albeit with certain restrictions. "There have been attempts to do away with it even earlier, but we never found a viable alternative. The govt needs to take onus and ensure that a minimum monthly or weekly salary is fixed," said Titu Saha, general secretary of City Suburban Bus Service.