People and commuters across Odisha are likely to face severe commuting woes as the All Odisha Bus Owners’ Association has called for an indefinite strike across the state from October 10 over various demands.
The association called for the strike accusing the state government of being callous towards their demands and showing no intent to sort out the issue through discussion, informed general secretary of the bus owner’s body, Debendra Kumar Sahu on Sunday.
“The state government has refused to accept our demands and did not even call us to sit across the table to sort out the issue. Hence, we have decided to go for the strike. Even the buses engaged in the educational institutions will go off the road,” he said.
“We had given a proposal to the state government to allow their buses to operate in rural pockets under this initiative. For the last three months, the government is not listening to our demands. It did not even invite the bus owners for a round table. We had earlier observed the strike in Koraput, Nabarangpur, Malkangiri and Rayagada on October 2. No buses will ply across the state from October 10 and that too for an indefinite period,” Sahu added.
Notably, the bus owners had earlier protested strongly against the Odisha government’s decision to launch affordable transportation for people across the state under location-accessible multimodal initiative (LAccMI).