RTO D Sadashiva presiding over the Transport Adalat held on Tuesday said that with the introduction of the colour code, all steps will be taken to see to it that only women are seated on the ladies seats, failing which the conductor of the bus will be held responsible for the violation.

Mr Hanumanth Kamath from Nagarika Hitharakshana Samiti informed that most of the women and children face great inconvenience while travelling in the bus as the four seats behind driver’s seat allotted for women are often occupied by men.

Neither do these men leave the seat nor do the conductors ask them to vacate even when the women are standing.

Responding to this, District Bus Owners’ Association President Bhaskar Salian said that the reason why conductors do not interfere into the issue is due to their past experiences of such issues turning into bitter fights.
RTO Sadashiva said that the Act states that when the commuter does not leave the ladies seat, the conductor should first request the commuter to leave the seat. When the commuter does not co-operate then that commuter must be taken to the police.

The gathering said that taking the commuter to the police is not feasible due to various reasons and hence many suggested that a board reading ‘Men occupying women’s seat is punishable’ must be put besides the board which states that the four seats behind the driver’s seat is for women. When couple of such violators are punished, people will not occupy the ladies seat.

Regulations for the usage of front entrance by women for both entry and exit and back entrance by the men, employing women conductors for day shift were some of the other suggestion made at the Adalat.

Participants also brought to the notice of the RTO that the buses in the city stop anywhere and everywhere as per their will which is causing inconvenience to the people.

RTO said that though the office had plans to put up the route numbers on the bus stop, but the advertisements of various companies put up in the bus stops by the Corporation is acting as an impediment.
He said that if corporation does not take off these advertisements soon, Office will have to decide on an alternate method to clear it off.

Mr Kamath said that RTO had levied a minimal fine of Rs 250 on an auto driver who had behaved rudely with a lady. 

He said that the driver had made the lady with her 5 year old child to get down half the way her destination and used abusive language.

The participants at the Adalat said that if the RTA goes ahead to cancel the license of such driver then such instances will not crop up.

RTO said that their hands are bound as the law says that in case of first time offense and when the driver accepts his mistakes and apologises in writing then they cannot penalise him by suspending his license.