Public Transport Woes
Parthasarathi Loganathan
(Querist) 24 January 2010
This query is : Resolved
For more than 4 years now, buses of Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) Chennai, as and when new fleet is introduced in any routes of Chennai, it is straightaway branded as Deluxe Service and has slowly substituted many important services under this category, thereby indirectly imposing excess fares on commuters who have no option except to depend on these bus services.
I wish to state as under:
(a) Categorizing new buses with DELUXE brand and imposing more than double the fare on commuters without providing extra benefits.
(b) Size of such buses is so narrow that Deluxe buses are often crowded to nullify the DELUXE brand. Standees during peak hours are put to lot of inconvenience due to basic design fault of these buses.
(c) In the name of semi low floor category the standees especially ladies and senior citizens are put to lot of inconvenience that either the roof handle grips are broken or left sliding without any control.
(d) About 20 seats (out of 45) are designed at a raised level causing congestion and difficulties to passengers. Commuters need to climb on these seats to occupy.
(e) To collect such excess fares, without any notice or information, a particular route gets converted to EXPRESS category with extra fares to ply in the same congested city traffic.
(f) Route Numbers are prefixed and suffixed with alphabets to three digit numerals making it difficult even to the education public leave alone semi-literates and senior citizens. These numbers are changed often to the whims and fancies of the MTC management.
(g) Most of the conductors are fastened to their seats without bothering to move freely and issue tickets.
(h) Need based plying of routes to address the transport requirements of the general public has never been taken into consideration.
(i) No reason to introduce HIGH COST AC Buses to ply empty during peak hours.
(j) Many such Deluxe Buses, even after getting old are still branded under this category to facilitate collection of extra fares.
I am posting these matters in this forum only to inform our learned brothers in Chennai as to why till date no legal recourse is initiated in the interest of the Public to get the above woes redressed. Advocate volunteers to come forward to help and advise the provisions of law on this burning issue for the benefit of public at large.
Prakash Yedhula
(Expert) 24 January 2010
You can address these issues by making a representation to the Transport Authorities and the State Government. In case they fail to act, you can file a public interest litigation before the High Court highlighting these issues and seek for appropriate remedies and guidelines.
Parthasarathi Loganathan
(Querist) 24 January 2010
Several Representations to MTC besides voicing these issues in the News Media yielded no results.
Raj Kumar Makkad
(Expert) 24 January 2010
If your representations have become futile than move ahead and initiate writ petition against STC before HC.
One thing more this experts section is confined only for the legal quarries and any discussion can be made in the separate section:Forum: of this community.
You should move your such discussion in that section.
Parthasarathi Loganathan
(Querist) 24 January 2010
Yes. I do understand the spirit of this experts section. As addressed in my first posting, I am just inviting our learned experts to mitigate their legal resources for initiating effective process to address the issue. That's it. Mr.Makkad's expertise and spirit in this forum is highly appreciated. I believe he referred to "legal queries" instead of "legal quarries" which must be wrongly typed.
