Dear Hon’ble Mr. Prime Minister,
India moves on wheels, quite literally! More than 90% of our people use road transport for their daily mobility needs. Being a country of masses, more than 70% of these movements happen through buses. We have over 17 lakh operational buses on Indian roads, out of which, about 1.50 lakh buses are operated by various STU’s. The remaining 15.5lakh buses, accounting for almost 30 Crore passenger trips, are run by private operators which are the member of various Associations & Federations affiliated to our confederation. Being a labor-intensive sector, we provide employment to millions of local, as well as, migratory workers.
As we have all witnessed, our nation had to be locked down on account of the ongoing Corona pandemic for more than 45 days to date. Unfortunately, due to the urgency under which the lockdown was imposed, migrant laborers did not get an opportunity to plan their travel back home. Firstly, I must applaud the efforts undertaken by the Government to bring back stranded Indian citizens from overseas despite all odds. I am sure nobody will ever forget that gesture. But back home, our migrant workers and laborers still struggle to find means to get back to their own hometowns.
The lockdown has resulted in a complete economic standstill for most companies, barring those who are able to facilitate work from home. In turn, this has created a serious survival challenge for all migrant workers who can neither go back home nor have a livelihood to support themselves. Despite the government’s guidelines to avoid layoffs and protect salaries, the contrasting reality for most businesses is now driven entirely by the grave dearth of liquidity. Upon noticing this plight of workers, the Government pro-actively issued guidelines on the 3rd of May allowing migrants to seek Police permission for obtaining passes to get home.
Unfortunately, just guidelines were issued to the public allowing them to return, but a much required public transportation plan was not formulated in an organized way to address this mass movement across the nation. Today in India, most of the development is concentrated in the NCR region, West, Central & Southern parts. Millions of migrant workers have travelled thousands of kms away from their homes with a hope to build a future for themselves. It is sad to see the plight of these people for no apparent fault. Since all public transport modes are closed, the local authorities and police have nothing but a little hope to mobilize millions of these people safely back to their hometowns. The current system of obtaining permissions to travel is complex and impractical, thus leaving most people confused and authorities overburdened. There are several challenges involved ranging from forming a group of people, obtaining Collector or Police permissions, which already are over burdened departments, finding buses to hire, managing finances to be able to afford buses at inflated prices because bus capacity has dropped to 50%, and operators are not allowed to ferry any passengers on the return trip etc. Many of these workers live in a hand to mouth situation and are unable to mobilize enough money to afford such a ticket, and thus are finding alternative unauthorized and unsafe ways to travel using Goods trucks and lorries or whatever means of travel available. It is disheartening to see the conditions in which they are being ferried which is worse than animals.
Out of 40 crore, total passenger trips by Public Transport, Public and Private operators, only by intercity buses, ferry approximately 10 Crore people per day. Overall migrant labour would not be more than 10 crore as most of it is migrated from North East states, Bihar, UP, Orissa and West Bengal to NCR and big Cities in West and South. Even if we assume that out of 10 crore carrying capacity of buses, only one tenth is being utilized to carry these people from other parts of the country to the above mentioned areas, due to various other reasons, and with additional support from Indian Railways problem of migratory labour can be resolved in maximum 10 to 15 days. I suggest Central Government immediately set up a task force having members, consisting of government officials, Public & Private Bus operating company’s representatives along with Indian Railway’s planners, discuss and make a coordinated plan within no time and the issues of migratory lablour can be solved in 8 to 10 days. Government has already allocated INR 20 lakh, Crores bailout package. This entire movement of migrated labour can be resolved with utilization of a very small amount out of this budget and Government will be blessed by crores of the people. It is very painful to see many helpless workers without any other means or money have also taken to the roads with their families and decided to scale distances of hundreds and thousands of miles on foot in the scorching heat with just the singular motive of somehow getting back home. Many have already succumbed…
With these non-controlled, non-standard modes of transportation being adapted by people going back home to remote villages totally unchecked, the risk of the virus mobilizing itself into remote deeper sections of the country is very high and may pose a much more serious threat than we now can envisage.
On this background Sir, in the larger interest of the public, we request you to consider resumption of Public Transport at the earliest, allowing the country, which moves on wheels, to once again start moving. Needless to say, stringent rules & guidelines to ensure safety of our people is the highest priority. We, at the Bus & Cab owners association of India (BOCI) are keen to work closely with the Government to formulate & execute a mass mobility plan across the nation, as well as work towards building a world class integrated, transparent & safe public transport system in our country for the long term. In your yesterday’s address to the Nation, you have already indicated that Lockdown 4.0 will come in different format. May I now request you to please take serious note of our request and allow Public Transport by Buses & Taxis to function under new safety guidelines sooner rather than later.
Jai Hind,
Prasanna Patwardhan
President
Bus & Car Operators Confederation Of India.