Himachal government, Opposition spar over HRTC fares for ferrying commercial items

Himachal Road Transport Corporation on Thursday clarified that the fare for commercial items being ferried on the buses has been reduced.
A spokesperson of HRTC in a statement issued on Thursday said no fare is being charged for personal and household goods weighing up to 30 kg per passenger or two bags/baggage/boxes of any size.
The government said the amendment made in the freight charges policy pertains to only bags/baggage/boxes carrying automobile spare parts, electronic items, electric items, dry fruits, new vessels, cosmetic items, hosiery items, medicines and medical appliances.
The clarification came at a time when the Opposition leaders are attacking the state government for hiking the rates.
Former CM Jairam Thakur targeted the state government over the amendment, saying, “Instead of improving the health of HRTC, the government is busy increasing the fare of buses, fare of goods carried by buses etc.”
“Earlier too we have seen the situation when fare has been charged from people for medicines of the elderly, toys of children, even wedding albums. Now again the government is on the same path where fare is charged even for the medicine box brought for one or two elderly people of the house,” he added.
The government, however, clarified that higher fares were earlier being charged for all items and that the fare rates have in fact been reduced by 75%.
The HRTC statement mentioned that for commercial items, a passenger fare was charged even without a passenger for a bag/luggage/box weighing up to 40 kg. Now, it has been divided into slabs to reduce the fare charges. For example, earlier a passenger fare was charged for baggage with these commercial items weighing 4 kg without a passenger and half the passenger fare was charged with the passenger. After the amendment, it has been reduced to one-fourth of the passenger fare.
The statement clarified that HRTC has also not made any change in the fare for carrying personal items, household items, apple boxes, school bags, women’s purses, laptops, fruit and vegetable boxes, flower boxes, newspapers and other materials.