Chennai: DMK president and leader of the Opposition M.K. Stalin had urged the state transport department to give up the proposal of hiking price of monthly passes from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,300.
In a statement on Tuesday, he hit out the transport department stating that "the department is floundering as to how to operate transport corporations with profit, but it is only focusing on increasing fare."
Stating that the ruling AIADMK government has been discussing to increase price of monthly passes to Rs 1300 from 1000, the DMK leader strongly opposed the move.
"Monthly passes are being used by poor and common people and the Metropolitan Transport Department should not shoot up the prices of passes," he said, adding that hiking price was an attempt to empty the transport corporations.
Corruption has become rampant in the transport department, Stalin noted and said "corruption is prevailing in procuring new buses and it had mortgaged depots worth crores of rupees. Further, ever since AIADMK assumed governance in 2011 and hiked fare across the state, about two crore of passengers switched over to different type of transport modes."
"I strongly condemn the government, which is struggling to run the transport corporations with profit. However, the government is contemplating that all transport corporations can be run with profit, if fare is hiked," he said, urging the government to abandon the decision to hike cost of monthly passes.
