Delhi,UP Trpt Secys to hold talks Friday to resolve bus row

New Delhi, May 16 (UNI) A meeting of Transport secretaries of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh will be held on May 18 to pave way for resumption of the bus services between the two states which have been suspended since November last year.

Talking to UNI here, Delhi Transport Minister Haroon Yousuf said a meeting of Transport secretaries of the two states would be held on Friday in the Capital to pave way for resumption of bus services between the two states.

Mr Yousuf said the main agenda of the secretary level talks will be the resumption of bus services between the two states.

''The suspension of bus services between Delhi and UP for the last over six months has caused great inconvenience to those travelling between the two states to commute to their offices.

For example, UP Roadways buses from Noida and Ghaziabad, which were previously coming to Delhi are now culminating at Kaushambi, which is leading to a lot of inconvenience to daily commuters between the two states,''the Minister said.

Expressing confidence of resolution of the six month-long bus dispute between the two states, the Minister said,''we are hopeful that unlike the previous Mulayam Singh Government, which had been adopting an intransingent attitude in the matter, the Mayawati Government will take a compassionate view in the matter keeping in view the problems being faced by the commuters.'' The present impasse between the two states arose in November last year when the two state governments suspended their respective bus services to the neighbouring state.

The suspension of bus services came after the Delhi transport authorities impounded ten buses of the UP Transport department, saying that these buses were operating as city services in Delhi, which violated the transport agreement signed by the two Governments in 2004.

This in turn led to the UP authorities also impounding over 100 DTC buses operating in Noida followed by the Delhi government suspending operation of DTC buses in UP with UP also suspending its bus operations in Delhi.

Though the 100 DTC buses impounded by the UP Government were later released, the issue remains unresolved despite several official level talks.

UNI