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Bus
routes to be auctioned Transport Ministry Secretary D. S. Jayaweera said the National Transport Commission would make this radical change in the transport system whereby bus routes would be auctioned to private or government operators and the successful bidder would have exclusive rights to operate on the routes it won at the auction. Mr. Jayaweera said the change would come into operation from January 1 for school and office transport services. He said both private operators and state-managed transport services could bid for the routes and the scheme would be first implemented in the Colombo city. The secretary said that as a safeguard the contracts would carry provisions to impose penalties on those who did not abide by regulations and operators who did not keep to timetables would lose their contract. He said that under the new scheme, the government would also be ready to give a subsidy to the operators on non-profitable routes, but in most cases, the scheme is expected to generate an income to the government. "Our aim is to make the transport system a more efficient and value-added one," Mr. Jayaweera said. According to NTC Chairman, Amal S. Kumarage, there are 18,000 private bus operators and 3,000 state buses in the country and 68 percent of commuters use buses. He said at present many bus operators owned only one bus and the NTC hoped the new scheme would open the doors to operators to come together and form associations to run buses with the government providing subsidy in some cases. The Ministry Secretary said the government was also planning to impose a tax on vehicles entering the city, as done in Singapore and Hong Kong. He said every year some 200,000 new vehicles were coming in and it translated into a huge amount of congestion. |
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