Mangaluru : Officials of the Transport Department on Friday swung into action against private city bus operators who failed to introduce electronic ticketing machine and issue tickets to passengers.

Inspectors of Motor Vehicles, led by in-charge Senior Regional Transport Officer G.S. Hegde, detained 12 buses for the failure of conductors to issue tickets. The buses would be released once the operators produce original documents, Mr. Hegde told. Repeated offence would attract strict action, he said.

The action follows after the department’s repeated directions to issue tickets were not adhered to by the operators. Except a few, conductors in almost all private city buses plying in Mangaluru do not issue tickets to passengers.

Still worse, when passengers insist upon tickets, the conductors just throw a bunch of hand-bill tickets at them, thereby humiliating such passengers.

Mr. Hegde said that though the department could have acted harshly by detaining many more buses, it did not want to do so keeping in mind the interests of the travelling public.

The detention of these 12 buses was a token action warning operators to adhere to the law, he said and added that passenger comfort was paramount for the department too.

Issuing tickets to passengers is mandatory as per the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act and rules made there under. If a passenger is found travelling without ticket, he would be considered an unauthorised passenger.

In the event of any accident and resultant injuries or death, such passengers or heirs would not be eligible to get insurance benefits since their travel itself was unauthorised.

Such passengers cannot prove that they travelled in a particular bus in the absence of a valid ticket.