Nagpur: On Monday, the flying squad of Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s Transport Department (NMC) busted a group of city bus drivers passing information on the ticket-checker movement. Later that day, all 10 drivers in the’ system’ were dismissed from service, as ordered by Narendra alias Balya Borkar, Chairman of the Committee on Transport.
On Monday, NMC Transport Department’s flying squad got a tip-off that city bus driver number 6144 was part of a ‘setup’. In conjunction with the city bus service, the term ‘ setup’ is used for the group of drivers and working and retired workers who transfer details on to each other to prevent ticket checker action.
The flying squad accompanied the one-and-a-half-hour Babulkheda-Sitabuldi bus and stopped underneath the Nanda Fata bridge. The bus conductor Sachin Kapse (ID no 70501) tried to cover his mobile phone handset during the search.
The cell phone handset was confiscated by the flying squad. NMC flying squad led by Sunil N Shukla and consisting of Kishor Wawurkar, Arun Mendhe, Girish Mahajan, and Gaurav Meshram found that some other city bus drivers often named Kapse. NMC squad engaged in a conversation via messaging from the confiscated cell phone handset to other conductors.
Eventually, they came to learn that the drivers exchanged details about the ticket-checker route and movement. Accordingly, nine other bus drivers were named, apart from Kapse, as Ankush Rathod (ID no 70604), Vilas Bhondekar (70602), Sudhir Ganorkar (70840), Sarfaraz (70231), Dinesh Landge (70508), Sanjay Chonde (70811), Rahul Bagde (70024), Mohan Sonkusare (70177), and Rakesh Meshram (70566). According to a statement released on Monday evening by Narendra alias Balya Borkar, all these 10 city bus drivers have been dismissed from the operation.
“Similar action by flying squad will proceed on a regular basis and those workers in the city bus will be immediately dismissed from service,” he said.
