School van operators contemplate fare hike

Nashik: School van operators in the city are contemplating increasing fares for ferrying students to and from school after fuel prices increased by around Rs7 over the past week.

With most schools yet to re-open, operators said they plan to discuss with other van operators to determine the hike they could effect in the monthly tariff.

Senior officials of the Nashik Regional Transport Office (RTO) said they did not take any decision to revise the tariff of autorickshaws, vans and other vehicles so far despite the hike in fuel prices.

Kiran Kabade, a school van operator, said, “school van drivers have been following all the guidelines issued by the Nashik RTO from time to time to ensure that that there is no violation of rules. This ensures a smooth day-to-day working. Most of the school van drivers have also got their fitness certificates of their vehicles in May, when the schools were closed for the summer vacation.”

He said the recent hike in fuel prices have put an additional burden on school van operations and it took effort to convince parents about why fares were being increased. He said that due to competition in the business, it was necessary for all operators to come together and decide on increasing the tariff.

Bhagwan Pathak of Shramik auto-rickshaw and taxi union in Nashik said, “Apart from the hike in petrol, diesel and gas prices, the fuel is also not readily available at most of the petrol pumps. We will soon approach the RTO to request at least a 20 percent hike in tariff.”