A racket that arbitrarily exploits bus fares

A strong protest has emerged that private bus employees are arbitrarily charging fares from passengers, under the guise of the 12.5% bus fare revision implemented concurrently with the fuel price hike. It is reported that conductors in many private buses operating mainly in the Western Province are charging passengers a higher amount than the stipulated fare.

Although about a week has passed since the new fare increase was implemented, the absence of any display of the revised new fare chart in any bus has further exacerbated this problem. Furthermore, since the issuance of tickets indicating the distance traveled and the corresponding fare has been completely neglected in many areas, the public is in a state of severe confusion and distress.

In addition, passengers complain that some conductors refuse to give back change less than ten rupees, claiming there are no small coins, and thus keep that money for themselves. This artificial shortage of small coins has been created because the change they receive daily is not brought back to the bus when reporting for duty the next day.

Due to this unfair conduct, passengers who use public transport daily are facing great inconvenience. Therefore, they urge the relevant authorities to take immediate steps to display new bus fare boards in all buses with immediate effect and to ensure that every passenger is compulsorily issued a ticket.