World News – CA – Bus owners call South Point parents for a fee

A portion of the school bus owners visited South Point School on Monday and presented a letter to a staff member asking management to urge guardians to pay at least 50 percent of their monthly school bus fees to keep them during the Pandemic can get through.

There are around 4 in Calcutta and the surrounding areas. 000 school bus operators. Most schools hire buses from these operators to take students to the facilities and back home.

The South Point School has around 25 buses of its own and has rented 20 buses from external operators. Some guardians have arranged for their children to be transported through agreements with bus companies.

Owners whose buses South Point has rented said the school paid them Rs 60 every month. 000 paid per bus for a round trip. After the schools closed in March, South Point paid 50 percent of the total contractual amount to the operators through June. Nothing was paid after June, the owners said.

Because of non-payment, bus owners are struggling to pay their employees and EMIs salaries for the loans some of them took out to buy buses.

“The owners and operators of contract vehicles have sent us a letter with their complaint. The school has a contract with them to operate some of our buses, ”said Krishna Damani, trustee of South Point School. “We decided to continue paying them 50 percent of the school bus fees. The decision has now been made. ”

There are around 250 schools in Calcutta and the surrounding areas, most of which have outsourced the operation of ferry students to various bus companies. The hired buses bear the emblems of the respective schools.

Depending on the number of trips a bus has to make, schools pay owners or operators between 60. 000 and 80. 000 Rs per month per bus.

School bus owners have a quarterly road tax of around 4. Paid 000 rupees despite the fact that the owners of private buses and minibuses stopped paying due to a waiver announced by the state government.

School bus owners said their vehicles don’t run all day unlike private buses and minibuses. There are strict rules that must be followed in order to work as a school bus and the insurance fees for these buses vary between 45. 000 and 55. 000 Rs.

“We wrote to the state government because we had waived our vehicle tax. We even submitted our appeal to the prime minister’s office. Nothing has happened. So we decided to block the road near the prime minister’s residence next week to meet our request, ”said Himadri Ganguly of the West Bengal Contract Carriage Owners and Operators Association. « How long can we get through this? »

All schools in the state were closed in March as a precaution against the spread of Covid-19. The state government still has to decide on the reopening of schools.

As it becomes increasingly difficult to pay their employees, many school bus operators have started looking for alternative careers. Some are considering giving up their school bus permits and applying for a commercial one.

In October, the Calcutta Supreme Court ordered all private schools in Bengal, including those run by the Church, to waive 20 percent of their tuition fees between April 2020 and one month after the resumption of personal tuition.

Schools have been banned from charging for facilities such as laboratories, sports and crafts that students will not use during the pandemic.

In November the Supreme Court declined in its order to interfere with instructions from the Calcutta Supreme Court to private schools in Bengal.

« In the Supreme Court order, there was no clear indication of student transportation fees as to whether bus travel was also part of facilities that schools didn’t charge, including laboratories, sports and crafts, » Ganguly said.

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