Blood bath continues on rural roads, govt fails to run SRTC

Jammu, July. 2 (HS): As the blood continues to spill on roads of J&K, State Government is squarely blame for backtracking from its commitment to run State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) passenger vehicles in far-flung areas to augment fleet of private vehicles.

Over loading in buses, minibuses and small passenger vehicles is going on unabated in rural and far-flung areas of the state especially in erstwhile Doda district despite series of tragic accidents.

At least 35 passengers were killed; leaving 16 injured today when a heavily loaded minibus fell into a deep gorge along Keshwan-Thakrai road of Kishtwar. Eleven students, including nine girls were killed on the Mughal road on 27 June. In both these cases vehicles playing were over loaded.

“We have time and again urged government to provide SRTC buses in these areas to reduce to load on private vehicles, but government remained unmoved.” Irshad Ahmed, a local resident of Keshwan said.

The lure of lower fare is main reason for over loading in rural areas. Sumo and tempo traveller’s charges Rs 100 from Doda to remote Dessa where as minibus covered the same distance in Rs 50 and many times it gets hard to find space in the minibuses due to over loading.

General Manager Operations SRTC, Jammu, Paramjeet Raina told, “We have only 250 buses in Jammu region but off them  only 60 per cent fleet is operational. Rest of the vehicles are either old or have developed major mechanical problems”.

Raina said that Corporation has provided 32 minibuses to Ramban, Doda and Kishtwar with the capacity 32 seats and 19 seats, while Rajouri and Poonch have around 3 buses and Kathua and Samba have 2 to 3 three buses in service.

Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Sanjeev Verma said, “Though there is high demand of SRTC vehicles in remote areas but there are number of other factors also involved in road accidents.”