Bhubaneswar: Commuters will now have to cough up more while travelling in bus as the Odisha government on Monday increased the passenger bus fares with effective from immediate effect.
The bus fares have been revised after a gap of almost five months in the State. The last changes in fares were made on 1 July 2020, official sources said.
As per the official sources the bus far has been increased by 1 paisa per km for ordinary and express bus categories.
While earlier it was 72 paise per kilometre, now the ordinary buses will charge 72 paisa per km. Express bus fares have also been increased from 75 to 76 paise per km.
In case of Deluxe and AC Deluxe coaches, the fare has been revised by 2 paise per km. Deluxe buses will now charge Rs 1.07 per km as against Rs 1.05 per km. Similarly, passengers have to pay Rs 1.29 per km instead of Rs 1.27 per km in case of AC Deluxe category.
The fresh fare revision is mainly attributed to steep hike in the prices of petrol and diesel which are on the upswing in the country.
It is expected that the petrol prices could touch an all-time high as the oil marketing companies (OMCs) raised their retail price for sixth consecutive day on Monday.
Earlier, the oil marketing companies (OMCs) on Sunday had increased the retail price of petrol by 28 paise per to Rs 83.41 a litre in Delhi. Similarly, diesel price also increased by 29 paise a litre to Rs 73.61 a litre.
The impact of the fuel price rise was also felt in other parts of the country including Odisha in the past couple of days.