Plea on fuel mileage norms

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the State Transport Corporation of Tirunelveli to consider a representation on fuel mileage norms to provide relief to bus drivers from harassment by the officials.In his petition, V Rayappan, a driver and the president of a transport employees union at Nagarcoil, claimed that bus drivers (town operation) working under 10 different branches of Nagarcoil division were being harassed by the branch managers demanding higher mileage. In 2005, the managers had instructed the bus drivers to cover 4.78 km per litre, but in 2009, they revised it to 6 km per litre.But due to traffic congestion, increase in the number of vehicles, the condition of the buses, passenger overload and increase in number of bus stops, town bus drivers were not able to meet the mileage demand, Rayappan stated. The corporation was penalising drivers who exceeded the fuel limit, he alleged.He cited a report of “The Ashok Leyland Company’’, which stated that all new diesel buses give 4.4 km per litre, to buttress his point and said that there was no response from the transport officials.Justice K N Basha, before whom the matter came up, directed the corporation to consider the representation and pass orders within eight weeks.Rayappan is the president of TN Arasu Pokkuvarathu Kalaga Kamaraj Nadar Tholilalar Sangam.