Passengers unable to pay exact fare told to alight

AHMEDABAD: Passengers who did not have the exact fare or had only Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes were not allowed to board buses on Wednesday. Conductors of state transport and city bus services asked such passengers to alight at the next stop. Kishan Parmar, who was heading to

Bhavnagar

in a

Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation

bus was asked to get off when he told the conductor that he did not have exact change. “The conductor told me that I should either give him change or board another bus.”

Pravin Rajput

, a conductor on an Ahmedabad-Bantwa bus said, “In order to get their notes exchanged, every passenger would pull out a Rs 1,000 currency note. I gave change for as long as I had it, but soon ran out. If all 52 passengers on the bus gave me Rs 1,000 currency notes I will have to tender change of over Rs 45,000 to the passengers in just one trip. I did not have enough change to return.”

The bus depots too did not have adequate cash. “Passengers wanted to pay in Rs 1,000 or Rs 500 notes. We gave change wherever possible or asked the passenger to wait,” said divisional Ahmedabad depot manager, A K Khant. Karishma Shah who was headed for Vadodara said that she had two notes of Rs 1,000 and wanted to get change so for a ticket worth Rs 100. “I only had three notes and if I paid with a smaller note how could I pay for autorickshaw and other necessities. As bus depots are government agencies, at least a hundred Rs 100 notes should be given to each conductor,” she said. However, when Shah was asked to get off, she agreed to pay the fare in change.

GSRTC, through its Twitter handle advised people to use its online payment facility but it was unlikely to benefit a large number of commuters who use the bus on a daily basis to travel. “Bus conductors did not have enough change but we are trying to cope with the problem. We are providing change to conductors to avoid confrontations and are appealing to commuters to buy tickets online whenever possible to avoid any inconvenience,’’ D M Jethva, depot manager, GSRTC, Rajkot.

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