Tamil Nadu Omni Bus Owners Association president A Afzal told TOI, \u201cGST will not affect bus fares in a big way. There are no service charge for non-air-conditioned (A\/C) buses anyway. For A\/C buses, service charge is lower by 1% under GST\u201d.<\/p>\n
Members affiliated to the association operate around 1,000 buses across the state, of which 700 are air-conditioned. Around 50,000 people travel on private buses every day. The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporations operate around 21,000 buses carrying nearly two crore passengers a day. SETC operates around 50 A\/C buses, while MTC and TNSTC also have A\/C buses on some routes.<\/p>\n
Vasu Ramasamy, COO and co-founder of TicketGoose, an online bus ticketing company said, \u201cFrom whatever rates have been published so far, service tax will increase from 15% to 18% [on the aggregator\u2019s commission] when you book A\/C bus tickets online\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added that GST will bring transparency. \u201cA section of the bus industry is unorganised, GST will bring every operator into the ambit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Traffic and Transportation Forum director V Rama Rao said the GST will not affect passenger fares on non-AC buses. \u201cOn online bus bookings there will be higher tax, but regular A\/C bus passengers may not mind the additional charge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Article was published in Times of India on June 30, 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t