Bus-fares up from July 1st

Bus-fares up from July 1st

Relevant associations have brought pressure on the government asking the government to increase bus-fares by 15 per cent from July 1st and that on the contrary failure to do so would result in a strike. As such what the association belonging to Gemunu Wijeyratna had said was that bus-fares be increased

threefold on routes where there is traffic congestion.

Transport Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva and authorities of the National Transport Commission had discussed about this with representatives of bus associations today and is supposed to have arrived at a final decision on this matter, it was reported. Accordingly, he had got round these associations to agree to the condition of increasing bus-fares in accordance with the annual increase agreement only which has been arrived at to accede to the request of increasing the fares from July 1st.

Under these circumstances the increase of bus-fare would be enforced at a percentage of 3.2% from July 1st. This has been confirmed at the discussion held at the Ministry of Transport today (20). The request to increase the fare on traffic-congested routes has been eliminated.