Omni bus operators threaten Tamil Nadu government with strike

The announcement of a strike from a section of the Omnibus drivers came in after the Tamil Nadu Government officials detained around 120 buses and offloaded the passengers stating overcharging.

Following the long weekend due to Puja holidays a huge number of people travelled to their hometowns and the demand for private omni buses surged in the state of Tamil Nadu. There has been a history of doubling private bus fares during such long weekends in the state. For instance, a ticket that generally costs from Rs 600-Rs 1500 depending on the distance gets doubled up to 1500-3000 during such festive times.

At this juncture, several complaints were received from passengers regarding the hiked prices and the government officials conducted a sudden inspection which resulted in the detention of around 120 private omni buses throughout the state. Moreover, a fine amount of ₹37 lakhs was also levied upon 2,092 buses for violation of rules.

The agitated bus owners announced a sudden strike from 6 pm on Tuesday threatening the Tamil Nadu government to come to a consensus. They demanded that their buses be freed immediately and denied the charges against them.

Thirugnanam from the All Omni Bus Association stated, "In Tamil Nadu, there are no fixed rates for Omni buses. A decision was made in 2022 between the Transport Ministry and the Omni Buses Association which gave us a free hand to fix rates as per the requirements. Moreover, for the past 10 days, the district authorities and the transport department officials have been monitoring our rates and there have been no issues reported. But this weekend owing to the maximum number of advance bookings done to travel on Ayudha Puja and Vijayadasami, we have been suddenly targeted and are buses have been detained. We cannot accept this act by the district authorities at all. We deny all their allegations which are completely baseless”.

Following the detention, the agitated omni bus owners announced a strike which would result in over 1 lakh people getting stranded without being able to travel. The Tamil Nadu Government have been indirectly handed a deadline of 6 p.m. on October 22 to ensure that an amicable decision is reached.

“Back-to-back discussions are underway with the Omnibus owners and we will be definitely sorting out this issue at the earliest. As pre-booking has been done for thousands of passengers travelling across different parts of the country, we cannot afford to let the public suffer at any cost”, said a senior official from the Transport Department.