Assam seeks over 1K vehicles from Bengal for April 9 Assembly polls

Kolkata, March 19 -- The Assam government has sought 1400-odd vehicles from Bengal Chief Secretary for its election which is scheduled to take place on April 9.

Principal Secretary of the state Transport Department Saumitra Mohan on Thursday virtually joined a meeting chaired by the Director,Transport, with state transport operators to discuss matters relating to availability and requisition of vehicles for election duty in Bengal. Mohan sought co-operation from the transport operators operating from North Bengal districts that share their border with the neighbouring state for requisition of buses for the Assam polls. Assam has a requirement of 3500 vehicles and as per estimates, the state can provide around 1000 ensuring that passenger services in the state are not jeopardized. Assam will also seek assistance from Bihar and other neighbouring states to meet their requirement.

In the meeting , the state Transport Department has sought a list of the number of vehicles that can be provided from representatives of 13-odd transport organisations that attended the meeting. There is a requirement of 1000-odd vehicles, including buses and mini-buses for elections in Kolkata, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas that will go for polls on April 29.

Operators pointed out that the police administration has already requisitioned more than 1600 vehicles for the movement of forces during the elections while another 700- 800 has been picked up by some RTOs. "We have informed the transport department officials that we want to cooperate with them during elections in the same manner, as on earlier occasions, but in the backdrop of police already proactively requisitioning so many vehicles, we have not too much to offer," said Tito Saha of City Suburban Bus Service.

During earlier elections, vehicles were procured from Howrah in Kolkata, South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas , but this time it cannot happen as Howrah also goes for polls on the same day. 

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.