According to the order of the State Transport Department, the Government has decided to allow charging only one and a half times the fare of the S.T. bus, however, private travel agencies are robbing the passengers by charging double or triple the ticket price from the devotees going to their native places for Ganeshotsav. Most of the ticket prices are openly given on the websites of private travel agencies.
In this way, despite the open financial looting of the citizens, no administrative action has been taken against them. Against this, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti’s ‘Surajya Abhiyan’, held a protest outside the booking centres of private travel agencies in Dadar (East) in Mumbai. In this movement, strict action was demanded against the private travel companies who loot the money of the devotees.
Abhishek Murukate, who complained to the State Transport department and Police against the increase in private travel agencies’ prices, Satish Kochrekar, Spokesperson of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, activists of Samiti and passengers participated in the agitation. On the occasion, the protestors were shouting slogans and holding placards in their hands, demanding immediate action against private travel agencies.
If the same type of crime is committed by these private travel agencies again in such cases even after preventive and punitive action is taken against them who loot the money of the passengers by an illegal increase in the ticket price, cases of fraud should be registered under section 406 and 420 of IPC, a separate law should be made to prevent financial extortion by private travel companies, and the boards showing the maximum rate that can be charged the places should be displayed by the Government at the places from where the buses depart. Various demands were also made in this agitation, such as providing ‘Helpline’ numbers for the convenience of citizens on the website of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation and the Motor Vehicle Department.
