Udupi: Pramod Madhwaraj, Minister for Fisheries, Youth Empowerment and Sports, on Friday warned the Udupi Regional Transport Office (RTO) against favouring private bus operators to the detriment and inconvenience of the general public.

Chairing the tri-monthly Karnataka Development Programme here, Mr. Madhwaraj said that the RTO should take action against private bus operators who were not operating buses on their route permits. The RTO should call for fresh permits for such routes. If the private sector was not ready, the permits could go to the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC).

The RTO was taking stern action for every violation of the KSRTC buses. There were complaints from people that the RTO was lenient to the point of inaction to the violations of the private buses, he said.

Gopal Poojary, MLA and Chairman of KSRTC, said that in some places, the KSRTC had given bus passes to students and others. But the private operators had found faults with them and gone to court and obtained a stay. Now, the students had neither the private buses nor the government buses to commute. “We are ready to operate buses to all villages in the district to provide better conveyance to the people,” Mr. Poojary said.

Priyanka Mary Francis, Deputy Commissioner, said that there were complaints from the people about private buses not halting at certain stops and not providing seats to passengers on the Udupi-Karkala route. They were blaming the RTO for being passive on the issue, she said.

Ms. Francis said that she had received complaints that the applications were being sold by private touts at Rs. 5 to Rs. 10 just outside the RTO office. Why were the applications not being provided at the RTO? Why was there no helpdesk at the RTO to guide people in this regard? she asked. The Assistant Road Transport Officer said that all the applications were now available online. “We will take action against those selling such applications,” he said.