Transport strike leaves thousands of commuters in the lurch

The strike was called to protest against state government’s alleged refusal to assist the transporters on the Calcutta High Court’s order banning 15-year old commercial vehicles from the metropolitan area from August 1.

In a related development,the court today refused to entertain an application by the Bengal Bus Syndicate to extend the July 31 deadline of the ban,observing that the right of citizens to breathe pollution-free air is supreme.

A division bench of Chief Justice S S Nijjar and Justice B Somadder also summarily rejected a prayer by environment activist Subhas Datta for an early hearing of the prayer by the bus owners.

Though private buses were off the roads,the state-run buses,trams and ferry services plied normally in the city and auto-rickshaws also came to the rescue of many harried commuters.

Metro and circular railways maintained their services with the Metro increasing the frequency of services from eight minutes to six minutes to cope with the extra rush.

The president of the Joint Council of Bus Syndicate,Sadhan Das,said nearly 30,000 vehicles took part in the strike.

A decision on continuing the strike in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area would be taken in the evening,he said. While the transporters called an indefinite Bus,mini-bus and taxi strike in the city and its outlying areas,they restricted the strike in the rest of the state to only a day.

President of the Progressive Taxi Association Madan Mitra said that they were not in favour of the strike as it was not any solution to the problem. “The state government should hold dialogue and resolve the problem”,Mitra,also a Trinamool Congress MLA,said.

The Trinamool Congress,which had given moral support to the demands of the private transport operators,had sought intervention of the Governor yesterday to end the stalemate.

On Thursday,a meeting between the state government and the private transport operators to thrash out a solution had failed.

Transport minister Subhas Chakraborty told reporters he had appealed to the operators to go on a token strike and challenge the order in the Supreme Court next week.