By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, June 23: Three months after the lockdown, the government has begun preparation to operate public vehicles after holding meetings with the public vehicle entrepreneurs and labourers.
Gogan Bahadur Hamal, director general at the Department of Transport Management, said the Department has been holding meetings with transport entrepreneurs and labourers in coordination with the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport to resume the service.
The Department had held a meeting with the public transport entrepreneurs on June 7 after the government endorsed and made public a guideline prepared for operating public transport in the Kathmandu Valley, Hamal said.
The meeting had also formed a committee, including representatives from the Department and the Federation of Nepali National Transport Entrepreneurs (FNNTE), to sort out the differences, he said.
"The risk of coronavirus transmission would be high if the government allowed public vehicles ply without any guideline so at present the government is doing further homework to make the service more organised and systematic," Hamal said.
Director General Hamal said that it would be impossible to resume the service before the first week of July if the transport entrepreneurs did not become ready to apply the guideline.
Meanwhile, FNNTE has said that they would be unable to resume the service under the given guideline of the government.
Saroj Sitaula, general secretary of the Federation, said that the owners of the public vehicles have mostly said that they would not be able to ply vehicles carrying only 50 per cent passengers of their total capacity, one of the major points of the approved guideline.
Most of the entrepreneurs have started commenting that all their investment made in transport sector had been at risk and they were facing pressure to pay bank loans, Sitaula said.
He said that the government had not given priority to resume public transport although all private vehicles were in operation under odd and even system.
As per the guideline endorsed by the government, each public vehicle must keep their buses clean and disinfect the vehicles every day, must carry only 50 per cent of the capacity of the vehicles with traffic police on the buses to monitor them.
Also, the guideline instructed the passengers and vehicle operators to pay and receive bus fare through digital technology, maintain physical distance while getting on and off the vehicles.
Passengers should also wear face masks while using public vehicles and the operators should take body temperature of passengers with thermal gun and must leave every other seat vacant.
The guideline was published by the government on June 12.
Sitaula said that the government should also take the responsibility of drivers, assistants and passengers if any passenger tested positive for the coronavirus.