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10 months on, Punjab Roadways yet to resume its Volvo service to Delhi airport
The Punjab roadways has failed to resume its Volvo bus service to Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in Delhi due to its lackadaisical approach to resolve
The Punjab roadways has failed to resume its Volvo bus service to Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in Delhi due to its lackadaisical approach to resolve the deadlock with the Delhi Airport Transportation Authorities (DATA) over plying permit to the airport for the past 10 months.
Jalandhar depot has been incurring a loss of average ₹50 lakh revenue per month since the roadways stopped its Volvo service to IGI Airport in December.
The state government had suspended nine state-run roadways buses to Delhi airport after Delhi Transport Authorities (DTA) issued challans and impounded several government buses in November last year citing that their state carriage buses did not have valid permit to pick and drop passengers from the airport.
Following this, Punjab roadways procured national tourist permit in December to resume the bus service from Shahid-E-Azam Sardar Bhagat Singh International Bus Stop, Jalandhar, to Delhi airport. However, the roadways had to halt the service again in few days after the DTA officials objected to ferry single/individual passengers on the national permit instead of group travelling.
A member of Punjab Government Transport Workers’ Union Jagir Singh said that the DTA is not stopping operation of private bus service ‘Indo-Canadian’ citing that it has special permission from the High Court for plying single passengers on the national permit to the Delhi’s airport. Moreover, Haryana roadways and Rajasthan state-run Volvo buses were still in operation. “Punjab government is deliberately not pursuing the matter to provide benefit to the Indo Canadian Transport Company, co-owned by Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal,” he said.
Singh said that Jalandhar depot was earning ₹85 to 95 lakh per month from its nine buses to the airport as the roadways buses are quite popular because they charge less than private operators. But now income has come down to ₹35 to 40 lakh per month as these buses have restricted their service to Delhi bus stand only. A Roadways’ Volvo ticket earlier cost ₹1,100, which is almost half the price of the private buses.
“The issue is yet to be resolved even though senior transport officials have taken up the matter with the DTA on several occasions. They are mulling a bus terminus at Dwarka, from where the airport operator would further provide shuttle service. The matter is under consideration,” said Roadways depot-1 general manager Parneet Singh Minhas.
He said that the transport department is putting efforts to resume the service at the earliest.
