WARRING WITH WARRIORS’: EIGHTH SESSION

WARRING WITH WARRIORS’: EIGHTH SESSION

Warring promises to regularize all temporary drivers, conductors

Recalls how in his 111 days tenure, he broke back of transport mafia

Blames AAP government for sorry plight of state transport today

Chandigarh 27 September ( Ranjeet Singh Dhaliwal ) : Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring today promised that once Congress forms the government in the state after 2027 elections, the services of all the temporary drivers and conductors working in the transport department will be regularized. Speaking during the live interaction in the eighth session of ‘Warring with Warriors’, he recalled his 111 days tenure as the Transport Minister Punjab referring to the revolutionary steps and measures he had taken to restore the state run public transport system. He said, one particular powerful family and its influential associates had completely monopolized the transport system in Punjab and created a “transport mafia”. He said he immediately realized how difficult it was to break the monopoly of the mafia.

So much so, he revealed, one Regional Transport Officer collapsed after his sugar levels fell when he was asked to challan an illegally operating bus owned by a particular and well known powerful political family. The former Transport Minister said that the routes and the timings of the buses were so much manipulated by the “transport mafia” that the government buses were made to run into losses. He said, prime time was allotted to the transport mafia and their buses were allowed to stop as long as they wanted to get the passengers while the government buses were not allowed to stand and wait for even half a minute.

Besides, he added, the private buses ran on 99,000 extra kilometers every day because of “illegal extension” of routes. He said, 60,000 kms were covered by the buses of the same family. He said, it took a lot of effort to get these illegal extended permits cancelled. Similarly, he disclosed that there were 80 “integral coaches” permits granted by the government, 50 of which were owned by one single family. Warring said, immediately after he took over, he increased the tax on these buses which resulted in passengers taking the government buses.  Another way of manipulating and cheating the system was operating “contract carriage” buses with less tax. He said, while these operated like “stage carriages”, which have to pay more tax, they (contract carriages) paid less tax.

Warring disclosed that these measures yielded instant and desired benefits as within 15 days, the government transport revenue increased by Rs 7.75 crores. He also said that he had increased the salary of the drivers and conductors and it was deposited in their accounts by Diwali. He said he had one regret that he was not able to regularize the services of temporary drivers and conductors as he did not get enough time. He promised that he will ensure it once the Congress forms government in 2027.

Besides, he added, he had ordered the induction of 850 new buses of which about 200 were delivered during his tenure only. He said the remaining buses were inducted after the AAP government took over, but the orders were placed during the Congress regime.

He also referred to some new and state of art Bus Stands in Patiala and Ropar which were started during the Congress government.He regretted that the AAP government had completely ignored the transport department and so many government buses were rendered useless merely because the government did not find it important to replace their worn out tyres. This, he said, was probably because the AAP government wanted to benefit the private transport mafia which he had finished during his tenure.