All Odisha Bus Owners’ Association calls for indefinite strike from October 10

Protesting against the Odisha government’s location-accessible multimodal initiative (LAccMI) to provide affordable transportation for people across the state, the All Odisha Bus Owners’ Association has called for an indefinite strike across Odisha from October 10.

As the first phase of LAccMI is scheduled to kick-start from the undivided Koraput district from October 2 on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, the Association has called for a ‘chaka bandh’ in four districts i.e. Koraput, Nabarangpur, Rayagada and Malkangiri on that day. Later, they have decided to begin their indefinite strike from October 10.

“The strike will be first observed in the undivided Koraput district which includes Koraput, Nabarangpur, Malkangiri and Rayagada on October 2. No buses will be allowed to and from the districts for 24 hours. Later, we will observe bandh on October 10 and no buses will ply anywhere in the entire state. We will observe the indefinite strike from Oct 10 if our demands are not fulfilled,” informed Debendra Sahu, General Secretary, All Odisha Bus Owners’ Association.

LAccMI was one of the 20 new initiatives in the 2023-24 budget under which the Odisha government decided to strategically focus on intra-block and intra-district connectivity and later integrate it with inter-city bus operations.

The first phase of the operation will start on October 2, especially in remote regions having no or less public transport connectivity. It will be gradually extended to all regions by January 2024.