30 roadways bus conductors face action, union moves high court

Thirty roadways bus conductors are facing disciplinary action over alleged irregularities in punching of tickets meant for accredited journalists MLAs and MPs.

The Uttarakhand Roadways Karmchari Union has moved the high court, saying the conductors were innocent. It said no action should be taken against the conductors as they were not given proper training.

Kamal Papne, president of the union, said 17 categories of people, including freedom fighters, MLAs, MPs, senior citizens and accredited journalists, are provided free travel in buses operated by the transport corporation.

It was alleged that tickets were punched at Rs.0 on hand held machines and passengers are given tickets meant for MLAs and senior citizens, incurring huge losses to the state exchequer.

The money against those tickets was later given to the transport department by the state government.

The alleged irregularities took place early this year.

The union alleged that categories 13 and 14 which are for MPs and senior citizens were interchanged in the ticket software.

“The conductors were not told about this and they kept punching tickets. It was later found that many MPs had travelled in the buses as the software had interchanged the values,” said Papne.

“After this, 30 conductors, who are in regular service, were put under enquiry and services of five others on contract were terminated.

“We protest the move from the transport department and we have gone to the court over the matter saying that the mistake was not committed deliberately,” said Papne.

Transport corporation general manager Deepak Jain said a detailed probe in the matter is on.

“There is no strength in the argument of the conductors that no economic bungling has taken place. What we are concerned is that hundreds of wrong entries have been made by competent and trained persons, which cannot be forgiven and there is no technical glitch,” he said.