Mercedes Benz

Yesterday, after a long gap of time, I boarded a bus. I had to visit my ailing relative at Jallandar but my car broke down so, I had to travel by bus. On the way to bus stand, I was recalling the days when I had to take trips of bus very often. I also remembered the pathetic condition of roadways buses those days. Following couplets were best written to describe the condition of buses.

“aa gayi roadways di lari.......na koi buha na bari........dakhe maran ohnu savari”(here comes the roadways bus, with shattered doors and window panes and have to be pushed by passengers to move)

But whole of view changed when I saw a gigantic white coloured bus from the make of Mercedes on the counter. Although I have heard about the makeover of transport system in recent times but have not got any first hand experience. To describe, it was an AC bus with sofa type comfortable seats, two movie screens and effective audio system. This bus was totally different from its precedents. It looked that I was travelling in a airline and not in a bus. I mean it as I have travelled many times in domestic airlines and this bus can be compared with the airbus at every level of comfort .After entering a sense of proud stared flowing and wanted to thank and congratulate Punjab government for such efficient transport system. As, since birth every Indian dream to sit in a Mercedes Benz. Although it was a bus and not car yet star logo of the Mercedes gives a unique sense of gratification. Although ticket was doubled priced yet every penny spent was justified.

On the way I found many of such type of buses sprinting on the road but strangely, all of them from the private players. The bus was full to capacity then why not government entering into such fruitful business. Why government wants private players to take such large chunk of money. After enquiring about this it came to me that all buses are owned by major political leaders of Punjab who are openly flaunting rules to run these buses on roads  like low road tax, without permit buses, favourable times, favourable and high revenue generating routes etc. Even conductor of that bus told me that public players like PUNBUS and PRTC  are finding it difficult to run such luxury busses. As per him, recently PRTC  quit its Patiala-Amritsar Volvo bus as PRTC faced a huge loss of 2.5 crore. Then how these private operators are finding it gainful to continue with these busses.  After a further enquiry, revealed that  these busses are acting as source to convert black money into legalized money. Also this is a measure to garner votes of upper middle class. Government always promise to work for the welfare of common masses yet ends up quenching the selfish needs of political personal and some elite classes of the society.

 In the end, safar(in Punjabi)  was good but at the end I have to suffer as a common man.