KASARAGOD: With Unlock 4.0 -- which kicked in from September 1 -- the central government took away the powers of state governments to seal borders and restrict interstate movements of people. The same set of guidelines allowed states to restart interstate bus services.
Yet, the people of Kasaragod continue to be held hostage by the whims of the bureaucrats.
In blatant violation of the Unlock guidelines and defying COVID statistics, collector D Sajith Babu continues to deny permission to Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) to ply its buses to Kasaragod.
Similarly, the Kerala SRTC too is allowed to ply buses only up to Thalapady, the border of Kasaragod-Karnataka.
With Karnataka starting regular classes, students from the border panchayats of Kasaragod are forced to board at least three buses to reach their colleges, said Nizar Pervad, retired government employee and social activist.
"Now students have to take at least three buses to reach Deralakatte, an educational hub on the outskirts of Mangaluru," he said.
When contacted, Kasaragod collector said: "I have not stopped KSRTC from running buses. When did I stop." It is up to the state government to allow KSRTC to run buses and give permission to Karnataka SRTC to restart services to Kasaragod, he said.
If Kasaragod's collector Sajith Babu is telling the truth, the rest of the bureaucrats are blatantly lying.
In October, the managing director of Karnataka SRTC wrote to the collector seeking permission to restart services. In his letter, he mentioned that there was no bar on Kerala SRTC buses from running services to Karnataka.
On October 16, the collector forwarded the letter to principal secretary of Transport K R Jyothilal.
When TNIE contacted the bureaucrat in Thiruvananthapuram, he said there was no need for any special permission from the government to restart KSRTC services.
An interstate agreement existed between Kerala and Karnataka and Unlock 4.0 has lifted the COVID restrictions, too, he said. "I have clarified the government's position to the collector," he told TNIE.
Jyothilal made the same point to Kasaragod MLA N A Nellikkunnu.
When TNIE contacted the District Transport Officer of Dakshina Kannada, he said that Kasaragod's collector was not keen on allowing bus services to resume between the two districts.
"I met the Collector in his chamber and requested permission. But he told me that he does not want COVID cases from Karnataka to reach Kasaragod," the Karnataka officer said.
In the pre-COVID days, Karnataka SRTC used to run 250 to 270 trips to and from Kasaragod to Mangaluru, he said.
"We are ready to start the services if the collector gives permission," he said.
The district transport officer of Kasaragod said Kerala SRTC was running 19 buses to Thalapady, one in 10 minutes.
"Before COVID, we used to run one bus every three minutes," he said.
Passengers will have to alight and reboard a Karnataka bus at Thalapady. "If anything, such arrangements will only increase the chances of infection of COVID as passengers have to board more buses," said Nizar.
Kerala SRTC board member and CPM leader T K Rajan said the collector should allow buses to ply at least during peak hours to reduce the inconvenience of students and office-goers.
"Now private vehicles are allowed to go to Mangaluru but not public transport. Such decisions are only hurting the poor," he said.
The collector's COVID bogeyman does not cut ice with fact, either. Since the outbreak of COVID, under 4% of the total cases are from outside the state.
Of late, 95% of the cases are contracted through local transmissions, with infection from other states accounting for around 2.5%.
In the 13 days of November, Kasaragod reported 1,561 cases of COVID; of them, 1,490 cases or 95.5% of cases are through local transmissions.
Only 40 of the 1,561 cases are from other states. Twenty-five infected persons came from abroad.
Kasaragod MLA N A Nellikkunnu said the collector and other bureaucrats should try to mitigate the problems of the people instead of creating more inconveniences.
Another IUML leader said that the collector was behaving like an LD clerk, pushing files around, instead of being a problem solver.