Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Private Bus Owners’ Association announced to put the ongoing strike on hold till October 31 following a meeting with Transport Minister Tukuni Sahu.
The bus services will be resumed tonight, Association secretary Debendra Sahu said at news conference.
“We have decided to put the strike on hold till October 31 following an appeal by the Chief Minister and Transport Minister. We are resuming the bus services tonight. Once again, we beg apology to the passengers for the inconvenience,” Sahu said.
However, the strike was not withdrawn, he clarified. Another round of meeting will be held between the association and the government on October 26. Based on the outcome of the meeting, the next course of action will be decided, Sahu said.
Transport Minister Tukuni Sahu discussed with the association members in the evening and appealed to them to resume bus services keeping in view the greater interest of passengers during Puja vacation.
The bus owners launched State-wide strike from today protesting the government’s move to ply buses under Location Accessible Multimodal Initiative (LAccMI) scheme.
Earlier this month, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had launched the affordable bus service under LaccMI with the aim of connecting all gram panchayats with district headquarters and the state capital.
