BELAGAVI: Government bus services between Karnataka and Maharashtra partially resumed on Wednesday morning.
Bus services were halted from Friday following the attack on a bus conductor by a group of people at Balekundri (KH) allegedly over a linguistic issue and the subsequent registration of a Pocso case against the conductor.
Due to the suspension of buses, lakhs of passengers from both states had faced huge hurdles. Amid this, private passenger vehicles suddenly hiked fares. More than 500 buses from Karnataka operated into Maharashtra daily, and the same number of Maharashtra buses operated into Karnataka.
On Tuesday, Belagavi DC Mohammad Roshan and SP Bhimashankar Guled held a meeting with Kolhapur DC Amol Yedge via video conference on resuming bus services between both the states, by providing additional security to buses. Following the meeting, buses resumed on Wednesday morning.
Shashidhar Maridevaramath, divisional controller, NWKRTC, Chikodi, told TOI, “We started the service of a few buses to Maharashtra in the morning. We added some more buses in the afternoon and evening. Hope everything will be normal by Thursday. Maharashtra buses may also start functioning on the Belagavi route from Thursday.” he said.
Meanwhile, bus services from Maharastra also resumed Wednesday. Santosh Bogare, the MSRTC divisional controller for Kolhapur, said, “After four days, MSRTC bus services partially resumed till Nipani and Sankeshwar on Wednesday morning. Of nearly 404 bus trips to Karnataka state, around 150 trips were made operational. We hope the services till Belagavi will resume on Thursday.”
