The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Thursday, August 10, 2000,
Chandigarh, India

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Tipsy crew put passengers in driving seat
From Raman Mohan

HISAR, Aug 9 — Road safety level in Haryana has taken a nosedive with roadside dhabas serving liquor free of cost to Haryana Roadways crew in return for illegal halts at these eateries.

The dhabas patronised by drivers and conductors now provide them special enclosures where they can eat and drink liquor while on duty away from the public gaze. While they don’t have to pay for anything passengers who have to eat there perforce pay through their nose for poor quality food.

Inquiries reveal Haryana Roadways buses were involved in more than 300 minor and major accidents during the past three months. Official sources privately admit that most of these mishaps took place due to drunken driving.

The racket came to light recently when a Haryana Roadways bus collided with a Tata Safari near Meham, killing five members of the well-known Khandewala family of Hansi in this district on the spot. It was found that the bus was not carrying any passengers. Its only occupants were at least six conductors and drivers who had collected free liquor and food from a nearby dhaba that they patronised. They were allegedly drinking and driving at the same time. The bus had been taken out of the yard without permission.

Inquiries reveal that drunken driving is more prevalent among drivers of buses plying on long routes in the evenings. These buses are generally halted at the favourite dhabas of the crew along the route and the journey is resumed after both the conductor and the driver have consumed liquor and food. Complaints to the authorities or the police are of no avail.

A local doctor who was on his way to Sirsa on Saturday last in his car narrowly escaped from being hit by a Haryana Roadways bus (HR39 7069) four times on the Hisar-Sirsa section of National Highway 10. He said the bus driver was drunk and almost lost control four times as he tried to overtake the car. The irate passengers ultimately brought the bus to a stop at Ding Mandi. The driver collapsed as soon as he alighted from the bus.

The doctor said passengers told him he had taken liquor at a dhaba near Meham an hour earlier after which he drove recklessly. The bus was detained at Ding overnight and passengers left by other buses passing by.

In another recent incident, the driver of a bus which started from Delhi for Hisar around 7 p.m. halted the bus at a dhaba in Meham and took liquor there. After that he handed over the bus to his friend for its onward journey to Hisar. The young man who brought the bus to Hisar is reported to be a tractor driver in a local farm. Passengers said the conductor, who was also drunk, did not object. Fortunately, the bus arrived in Hisar late in the night safely after several hiccups on the way.

Another Haryana Roadways bus (HR39 0939) running between Hisar and Hansi first hit a pole at a railway crossing on the Delhi road here yesterday and later went off the road trying to avoid a tree. The driver was found drunk. Fortunately, all 30 odd passengers had got down the bus at the Model Town bus stop here when they found the driver drunk.

Inquiries by The Tribune reveal drivers who reach their destination in the evenings and have to stay there overnight routinely take out buses for personal use. Many of them prefer to put up with a relative in a nearby village and take the bus along. Buses parked in the yards or bus stands at night double up as bars for their crew.

Buses, which have to be parked overnight in villages for their return journey the next morning, are mostly driven to their destination by daily passengers. It is learnt that drivers manage to be posted on routes on which their villages fall. They alight at their village and the bus is taken to its destination by a passenger who also drives it back in the morning to the driver’s village.

It is estimated that the dhaba owners on an average spend Rs 1 lakh a day on providing food and liquor to bus crew. The calculation is based on the assumption that Haryana Roadways has 3300 buses which have around 6000 crew members on board daily. Sources reveal that at least 1000 of them take free food and liquor from dhabas. Each crew member costs the dhaba Rs 100 a day. The annual cost to passengers who indirectly pay for this comes to a whopping Rs 3.5 crore.

Until a few years ago, these dhabas were providing only free food to busmen. However, the Punjab and Haryana High Court banned halts at roadside dhabas a few years ago following a report in The Tribune. The buses were then ordered to halt at bus stands or at the Haryana Tourism complexes which dot all important highways in the state. But the busmen began to ignore the court orders after a few months.

Liquor came on the scene during prohibition when busmen began halting at dhabas outside the state’s borders which offered the crew liquor free of cost. Once prohibition was lifted, busmen began demanding liquor from dhabas within the state too. The dhaba owners were only too keen to oblige. However, drunken driving has now become a major cause of road mishaps especially in the evenings.