For J&K’s public-transport operators, the pandemic has proved the last straw

Public transport operators are scrapping their vehicles to run their homes. IMAGE CREDIT: Umer Asif

Srinagar’s Parimpora bus stand looks desolate, with fleets still draped in an inertia, having idled for months. Forty-eight-year-old Mohammad Maqbool, a driver, takes manic drags of his cheap cigarette to keep anxiety at bay as he scans the sparsely occupied boarding area with bloodshot eyes.

He has been waiting for five hours and still does not have enough passengers. He can’t remember a worse time in his twenty years behind the wheel.

“After August 5, it has been bad,” he says, taking another puff.

On 5 August, 2019, the Narendra Modi government revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir state, and bifurcated the region into two Union Territories (UTs)—Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

After that, the region remained under prolonged clampdown for over five months. Public and private vehicles were off the road, leaving employees of the public transport sector in deep crisis.

Maqbool owns his bus, like most public-transport drivers in the region. Here, public transport is largely serviced by private vehicles such as buses, mini buses, SUVs and smaller cars--for every government-owned vehicle, there are roughly nine privately owned ones. This privately owned fleet employs 1.5 lakh people between 20 to 50 years, who barely make enough with Rs 1 lakh as their annual income.

The August 5 order put all of them out of jobs for months.

Just as the restrictions began to ease, the pandemic struck and the newly created UT was put under a strict lockdown once more. 

“For over a year, our buses gathered dust. At times, we didn’t have enough to even buy essentials,” says Maqbool to Moneycontrol. 

While drivers of government-run vehicles still had their paycheques coming in, private bus owners-drivers like Maqbool lost the Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 they used to earn monthly and still had to pay their conductors around Rs 4,000.

“I could pay my conductor only for the first five months. He was understanding… how can I pay him, when I can’t feed my own family,” says Maqbool.

‘Scrapping’ through

To tide over this difficult period, vehicle owners took on manual jobs. As recent as June 2021, there were videos and pictures being shared on social media of people scrapping their vehicles to run their homes.

“Over 10 buses were scrapped by their owners and sold. What else could they have done,” asks Shabir Ahmad Matt, chairman of Western Bus Stand, Parimpora.

Muneer Ahmed had to sell his Tata Sumo to his debtor, after tiring of the latter’s visits to his home every day. “I had no other option,” says Ahmed, who had borrowed to meet domestic expenses.

Fayaz Ahmad, a bus driver from North Kashmir’s Bandipora district, tells Moneycontrol that he couldn't buy a smartphone for his two children who had to attend online classes during the lockdown. “I am not educated but I am particular that my children are,” he says, “so we sent them to our neighbour’s house, to use their phones.”

What has the government done, to help the transport employees? Not enough, says Matt, who is also the president of All Kashmir Transport Association.

Secretary of Kashmir Transporters' Welfare Association, Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf says that there was relief provided by the J&K Administration, in paying insurance premiums--Rs 5,000 for every mini bus, Rs 3,000 for every SUV, and Rs 2,000 for every autorickshaws. But, even this meagre compensation did not reach every transporter, he says. Yusuf’s estimate of the losses suffered by private transporters since August 2019 is around Rs 8,000 crore; though there has been no independent study done to confirm or refute this number. 

Public loses to private 

People who work in public transport say that work has anyway been on the decline for years, with commuters choosing to travel in their own vehicles and even carpooling. “When a private car owner travels from North Kashmir to Srinagar or from South Kashmir to Srinagar, he offers a lift to four or five people,” says Matt.

According to a report, in the three decades between 1971 and 2004, Kashmir had seen 1,54,277 vehicle registrations. In less than two decades since, the region’s vehicle registrations have rocketed to 7,22,199. Apart from this,  thousands of vehicles  bought from other states ply on J&K’s roads without registration.

The recent lockdowns have accelerated the diminishing of public transport.

Rising fuel prices have increased the transporters' running expenses astronomically. Added to that is the government’s new policy pushing for scrappage of vehicles older than 15 years. On 26 September, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha  announced a subsidy of Rs 5 lakh per transporter looking to replace an older vehicle. It seems substantial except the scheme has been allotted only Rs 1.75 crore, which only amounts to subsidy for 35 vehicles--a drop in the ocean.

Then there is the fear of the third wave. Matt is worried whether the government will once again issue an order mandating vehicles carry only 50% of their capacity. In April 2021, when such an order was passed at the height of the pandemic, private transporters in J&K had gone on a strike for 42 days demanding that the fares be hiked by 50%. Finally, the government allowed the vehicles to ply at 100% occupancy. Matt is not sure how long this small relief will last.

(Auqib Javeed is a Srinagar-based journalist and tweets @AuqibJaveed)