PUNE: Raju V Latamble is among the biggest school bus
transporters
in the city, owning more than 200 school buses. Altogether 11 of his buses were seized by representatives of a non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) last year after he failed to pay the monthly installments as schools shut down due to the pandemic.
“Now, they are after 48 more buses, which I had bought last year before the pandemic. I am being threatened with legal actions and I am stressed. They send their strongmen who speak roughly and threaten me with dire consequences. How can we pay when there is no business for one-and-a-half year? I have been in this business for the past 14 years and have never missed out on payment,” he said.
More than 120 transporters, most of them
bus
owners, visited the offices of five nonbanking financial companies on Monday, requesting them not to use force to recover loans and confiscate buses.
Kiran Desai, transporter and secretary of the Pune Bus Owners’ Association, told TOI that since last year more than 300 buses of the transporters have been confiscated. “If this continues, we will surrender the vehicles to the
RTO
offices,” Desai said.
He added that the issue needs to be taken up seriously. “We have met the Pune collector and the divisional commissioner and appraised them of the issue, but no steps have been taken so far. We have given the NBFCs one week to take corrective steps,” Desai said.
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