It was chaos and confusion on Monday morning for commuters of BMTC buses, as they were unaware of a bus fare hike effected Sunday midnight. Neither Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation nor the state government had advertised the fare hike, which is around 14 per cent. Many commuters demanded bus conductors to produce the fare hike chart as they felt they were being conned.
The confusion was largely because of lack of communication from BMTC. The fare hike for BMTC buses is between Rs 1 and Rs 2, for Vajra buses Rs 5 and Rs 10 and for Marcopolo buses it is Rs 2 and Rs 4.
“I was not aware of the fare hike. When I was asked to pay the extra fare on a route that I take regularly, I was taken aback, and I asked the conductor to produce the new fare chart. For my commute between J.P Nagar 3rd Phase and Shanthinagar in Volvo buses, I have to shell out Rs 5 extra,” said Muralidharan Kaushik a regular BMTC traveler. BMTC and KSRTC officials claimed that the state government decided on the fare hike late on Sunday night and the final notification for publicizing it came around 11.45 pm.
“It is difficult to classify the exact hike in percent Day passes: Commuters purchasing day passes have to pay Rs 5 extra age for BMTC as the fare is decided in stages. For KSRTC, the hike is around 12 per cent. The revised fares will bring additional revenues of Rs 185.88 crore,” said a spokesperson for the state-run transport corporations.