Rajasthan private bus operators on strike today against tax increase

Jaipur: Over 15,000 private buses will not operate in Rajasthan as the bus operators have announced a strike against the ‘disproportionate’ increase in taxes in the budget. The strike is likely to affect over 15 lakh passengers who commute in private buses daily on average.

The bus operations association of Rajasthan president Anil Jain said that the tax burden has made operating buses worthless as a business. The government first increased the taxes by 600 percent and in the last budget, the tax was reduced only slightly despite the fact that the problems being faced by bus operations due to the tax increase have been brought to the notice of the state government.

“We have to pay unrealistically high tax. We will continue to protest until the government reduces the tax,” said Jain.

The bus operations surrendered the RC and permits of over 400 buses in the RTO-DTO offices on Tuesday as part of the protest.

“The strike will affect over 10 lakh passengers. About 15,000 buses are operating in Rajasthan. We will observe strike today. We will prepare our strategy if our demand of reducing the tax burden is not met by the government soon,” said Jain.