If the state government doesn’t address the issues they may experience as a result of the LAccMI plan, the private bus owners in Odisha have threatened to remove their vehicles from the road. The Location Accessible Multimodal Initiative (LAccMI) program of the government would have an impact on the families of more than 14,000 workers of private buses, according to Debendra Sahu, secretary of the Odisha Private Bus Owners’ Association in a letter to the State Transport Authority (STA).
“Though we are not against the scheme as it would benefit the people, we are concerned that the government was not concerned about the families of the bus employees whose livelihood would be affected. We are already hard pressed by Mo Bus service of CRUT in selected urban areas. The LAccMI scheme, which would extend bus services in rural areas, would further affect the income of over 8,000 private bus owners,” he said.
Before introducing the program, Sahu said that the government had not taken into account the challenges that the operators of private buses would face. The government met with the bus owners on many occasions after the group objected to the decision, but no resolution was reached, he noted. By September 27, he warned, private bus owners would have to stop operating their vehicles if the government was unable to resolve the issues with the bus routes and time via negotiation. The government intends to operate buses as part of the LAccMI system from panchayats to blocks, blocks to district headquarters, and districts to the state capital. The plan was also authorized by the Cabinet at its most recent meeting.