Stage Carriage Permits Scheme approved

by Haryananewswire (Balbir)

CHANDIGARH, SEPT 28

The Haryana Cabinet, which met under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda here today, approved a new Stage Carriage Permits Scheme.

          The objective of the scheme is to provide an efficient, adequate, economical and properly coordinated bus transport service in the State. At present, there is a gap in the demand and supply of public transport services and the new scheme will help in bridging this gap by augmenting the public transport services in the State. The services on the routes included in the scheme will be provided by Haryana Roadways in partial exclusion of others and the rest of the area or routes would remain exclusively reserved for Haryana Roadways.

            The number of permits to be granted to private operators on these routes has been specified keeping in view the passenger transport demand. As many as 3519 permits would be offered under the scheme on 1017 routes. Only the routes having originating and terminating points in the State and not connecting two district headquarters have been included in the scheme.

          Any person of Haryana domicile, Society/Firm/Company registered in Haryana and Local Bodies within its respective jurisdiction, in the State will be eligible to apply for permit under the scheme. A Society/Firm/ Company/ Individual person will be eligible to apply only for one permit. No Society, Firm, Company or family in case of individual applicant will be granted more than one permit under the scheme.

          The existing permit holders under the 1993 and 2001 schemes, who have no road tax, passenger tax and bid money pending towards them on the date of application, shall first be given an option to obtain permits on any route included in this Scheme in lieu of their existing permits as per the prescribed procedure. Under this procedure, the existing permit holders shall be allotted permits on preferential basis on the routes included in the schedule of the scheme as per their request notwithstanding the number of permits mentioned against a particular route included in the Schedule. The existing permit holders shall be given the option/preference in the district where they are holding the permits. No additional permit shall, however, be granted to any private operator or Co-operative Transport Society or any of its members already holding a stage carriage permit. The routes and/or permits, as the case may be, of the existing permit holders under the 1993 Scheme, who continue to ply on their existing routes not included in the schedule, shall in addition be deemed to have become part of the Schedule of this scheme.

                    It was decided that under the new scheme, after adjusting the private permit holders of 1993 and 2001 schemes in the above mentioned manner, applications for grant of remaining permits shall be invited. If the number of eligible applicants exceeds the number of permits to be granted on a particular route, the permits shall be granted to the eligible applicants through draw of lots. No extension in the route will be allowed. Temporary variation will be allowed due to non-motorability of the route. The 1993 and 2001 schemes will be repealed. To avoid dislocation of transport services, a provision has been kept in the Scheme to the effect that the existing permit holders will continue to ply their buses on their existing routes in the same manner as before, till a date to be decided by the Government.

                         As per the main terms and conditions decided for grant of permits and other proposals, any bus with 20 or more seats will be allowed. GPS will be installed on the buses. The private operators will carry students and other concessional/free pass holders as carried by Haryana Roadways buses. The permit fee will be Rs.5000 and Rs.2500 for buses having more than 32 seats and buses having upto 32 seats respectively. The passenger tax will be charged under the scheme at a rate of Rs.200 per seat per month. On rural routes (routes lying more than 50 per cent on village roads) and urban routes (routes lying more than 80 per cent within the municipal limits of Cities/Towns), the passenger tax will be at a rate of Rs.100 per seat per month. A penalty of Rs.10,000, 25,000 and 50,000 will be charged for first, second and third offence of plying the bus on unauthorized route after availing the lower tax facility on rural/urban routes. The passenger tax for complete month will be charged in addition and with third offence the permit would be cancelled. Rs 5000 will be charged as fee for change of time table. A  non-refundable application fee of Rs.2000 will be charged from the applicants under the scheme.