Private transport strike may affect your travel on September 11

Ahead of the call for a bandh by the Federation of the Karnataka State Private Transport Associations in the city on Monday, different groups of people in the city are sceptical of the impact on traffic movement in the city. 

The federation, comprising a total of 32 private transport associations, including taxi, maxi cab, private bus operators, and auto-rickshaw drivers, has pledged to stay off the roads starting from midnight of September 10 until midnight of September 11. 

They claim to have been negatively impacted by the Shakti scheme and claim that the state government has not fulfilled their demands despite repeated discussions. 

S Nataraj Sharma, president of the federation, said: “I understand that people will be affected for a day but what about us? We have been suffering for too long.” 

He noted that the federation has requested schools to declare Monday as a holiday, companies to offer work-from-home options for their employees, and airport-bound travellers to make alternate arrangements. 

Manas Das, president of the Outer Ring Road Companies Association (ORRCA), clarified that the association had not released any directives to the nearly 500 companies that are a part of it. “The companies have made their own decisions for Monday. Some of them will conduct business as usual, some have decided to operate with skeletal staff and others have given work-from-home orders to their employees,” he said. While IT companies have not formally announced any changes to their schedule, employees expect to see some directives passed by Monday.  “Nothing has been officially announced but I don’t suppose it will affect big companies that much. They might just ask people to work from home. Mid-sized companies might be affected because of this bandh,” said an IT staff working in an international company along the ORR.

Cut-off box - BMTC to run 500 extra buses  The BMTC plans to deploy 500 extra buses including 50 Volvo services to meet the additional demand due to the strike an official said.  The corporation will consider scaling up its airport bus services if the demand warrants another official said. The BMTC currently 140 Vayu Vajra (airport) buses that make 950 trips on 14 routes. “If we see that there is a greater demand for airport buses on Monday we will increase the number of trips” the official said.  The BMTC has instructed all field officers to keep vigil while depot managers have been asked to ensure there’s no harm to the corporation’s properties. 

Cut-off box - Which services will be affected?
Auto-rickshaws taxis airport taxis maxi cabs private buses school buses and corporate vehicles are expected to be completely off the roads or hard to find.

Cut-off box - Expected traffic situation
The Bengaluru traffic police say that although more private vehicles may get onto the roads the overall traffic might be lesser than usual meaning that the traffic flow might be a little faster than usual. 
They are hoping for people to use more BMTC buses to move around on the day. They will be studying the impact of the bandh on traffic after Monday an officer said.