Coal town bus operators are not ecstatic over the resumption of intra-state operations, due to the steep hike in fuel prices.

Following the relaxations by the state government allowing operation of intrastate buses, only five intra state buses out of a total of 250 operated from Dhanbad on the first day.

Talking to The Telegraph Online on Thursday, Sanjay Singh, Vice President of Dhanbad Bus Owners Association, said, “We are treading cautiously in changed scenario of over two month closure when the fuel prices have increased to around 25% and unless we get 50% bookings we are not in a position to resume the full fleet of long distance buses like those running between Dhanbad to Ranchi.”

“We will not able to even to pay the salaries of our staff if the booking remains less than 50% of the total capacity,” said Singh.

For buses operating between Dhanbad to Ranchi they required at least 100 litres of diesel per day and when the diesel prices have increased to over 94 per litre they will be required to invest around Rs 9400 per day which will be around Rs 1700 more than the previous per day fuel cost of Rs 7700 per day, clarified Singh.

“No other relaxation despite our demand for waiver of road tax of three months of April, May and June of closure period and increase permit tenure till September have been considered by the government adding to our financial constraints,” said Singh.

Sumit Singh, owner of Bundela Travels which operates over 25 buses said, “The response of the passengers during the first day was quite poor and as the five out of 250 buses, including two for Giridih and one each for Ranchi, Bokaro and Chhatra which operated from the Bus Depot at Bartant operated with less than 10% occupancy.”

“Various reasons, including the lack of proper information among the passengers about the government permission for operation of buses from today, availability for lesser staff before the bus operators for running the buses were responsible for poor occupancy today” said Singh and added that they are expecting the passenger flow to improve gradually within a week.

“We will be operating a limited number of buses in the present scenario and only will be able to operate the full fleet in the changed scenario of increased fuel prices when the passenger flow increases” said Singh.

Sunil Singh, operator of Sunil Travels which operates buses between Dhanbad to nearby Bengal towns like Purulia, Asansol, Durgaur and Burnpur said, “The relaxation in Jharkhand has no benefit for us unless the situation improves in Bengal but we welcome the Jharkhand government relaxations.”