Srinagar: The Private Schools Association of Jammu and Kashmir (PSAJK) on Sunday announced revised fares for school buses.
Since schools reopened in the Valley last week, there has been an acute shortage of school buses for ferrying students to and from the schools.
A PSAJK spokesman on Sunday cited a new directive by the authorities to charge the transport fee under a different head.
“Earlier schools used to merge the academic and transportation fee accounts together to provide transport services to students at a reasonable rate. But now the situation has entirely changed. The School Fee Committee recommends keeping transportation and academic fee accounts as separate ones, so one cannot subsidise transportation on the back of academic fees,” the PSAJK spokesman said.
Citing the pandemic, he said it had rendered the bus fleets “almost defunct” while the maintenance charges, road taxes and interest on loans have remained unchanged “creating a huge liability”.
“In the current situation when everyone is facing a financial crunch the working of transportation at previous rates is impossible. The price of diesel and petrol has increased by a big margin during the last three years adding to the woes,” the PSAJK said.
The PSAJK informed it has fixed the bus fare rate as follows: Rs 1,950 per month for 0-5 km distance and Rs 2,450 per month for 5-10 km with Rs 45 hike for every additional km thereafter.
“All schools have been directed to charge only 50 percent during off periods extending to one month or more,” it said.
“Furthermore there will be only a 50 percent transportation fee during non-operational period/winter vacations.”
The association said the decision was taken on the basis of deliberations by the PSAJK executive body saying it had “tried to approach SRTC to help schools arrange vehicles on urgent basis which was not found feasible on account of cost per seat”.
“SRTC has a 26 day cycle of payment. For 19 seaters, they charge 85,280 which amounts to Rs 4,488 per seat per month without a helper. And for 50 seaters they would charge Rs 1,50,000 which amounts to Rs 3,000 per seat per month. 30 seater buses were not available but 50 seater buses cannot ply on interior roads,” the association said.
“A large number of parents have already said that they cannot afford such charges due to economic situation and PSAJK understands it fully. If everybody tries to stick to their hard stand, no progress can be achieved,” it added.
“So it was decided to fix the rates for school buses and put the anxiety of both parents and school administration to rest”.
It said that in case of any grievances parents have been requested to call the grievance cell of PSAJK on phone numbers 7889578450 and 01942471110.
The Association said that it is a “temporary arrangement and it needs a permanent solution for which the government too needs to step in.”
“Schools have to incur huge expenses on transportation. We appeal to the government to waive off interest of our EMIs, road tax, fitness charges and other miscellaneous charges. Government should also defer installing GPS in school buses which otherwise is a huge expense for schools,” it said.
