Swachh Bharat

Maintaining personal hygiene is necessary for many reasons; personal, social, health, psychological or simply as a way of life. Keeping a good standard of hygiene helps to prevent the development and spread of infections, illnesses.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan from Valmiki Basti in New Delhi on 2nd October 2014, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The Prime Minister asked citizens to change their mindsets as cleaning is not only the responsibility of safai karamcharis. The ambitious drive includes sweeping, removal of garbage, debris and unauthorised encroachments from the roads, markets and residential places. The campaign is aimed at making India a clean country by 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

A clean environment ensures the continual existence and survival of all life on Earth. Cleaning the environment reduces pollution, protects unique ecosystems, prevents the extinction of endangered species and conserves resources, such as water, land and air. A clean environment ensures the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems upon which human life and all other life on Earth depends.

If you look around, trash and litter is everywhere. Nobody seems to care about the waste, and how we discard it. If anything, we add to the garbage that is already abundant in the open and is everywhere. Littering a plastic cup on the road-side, after we done using it, is the norm. No one realize anything wrong with it. Throwing our waste on the street, and right outside our own house is a part of the daily routines. That’s how we are, that’s what we think is normal. Having waste and garbage scattered around everywhere does not bother us. We are content within ourselves as long as our house is polished clean up to the front doorstep. When it comes to surroundings, that’s where our responsibilities seem to end. That’s where we tend to stop – our doorsteps.

Taking context of travel & transportation: Throwing waste everywhere makes it difficult for other passengers during the journey and for the next passenger coming in. It takes 2 hours to clean the bus thoroughly from inside and outside after a journey. After a journey bus is filled with empty wafers packets, Biscuits, Bottles etc. this leftovers can be easily carried by the respected passengers but it is generally ignored. Due to this ignorance, Wash room in our bus Club One got choked several times because customers used to litter in the toilet

Sooner or later we have to realize this problem. We need to change our mentality on how we treat our neighborhood and surroundings. Littering is socially accepted in India – nobody minds, no one cares! We can make all the progress, we can make all the economic strides alongside the rich nations, but we can only go so far if we are surrounded by the smelly dirt piles and garbage. Financial and economic breakthroughs are good. However, along the way, what we really need is a change in our mentality to care for our environment, to care for our own surroundings. And, we need to realize this at personal level, sooner than later.

Online Bus Travel Industry in India

The bus travel industry in India is unorganized and highly fragmented. It is a 120 billion annual turnover industry with a growth rate of 25% per year. This industry is growing phenomenally in India, being one of the most preferred modes of transport for millions of Indians. There are around 2000 private bus operators which function with almost 20000 buses on point to point routes. In the Indian bus travel industry, most of the private players were regional players and did not have a pan India presence and therefore there was a lack of a centralized platform for organized scale of operations.

Despite of growth of online ticket reservations in India through renowned players like makemytrip.com (airline) and IRCTC.com (train), there was a reasonably slow growth when it came to online bus reservations. The role of IT in revenue management is prominently discussed by many researchers. The reasons for this slow growth could be attributed to several reasons like the unwillingness of the majority of the Indian population to book their bus tickets online, low internet penetration and more than that, the unavailability of a proper online platform to book their bus tickets.

The major challenge with the Indian bus ticketing industry is that despite of being used by millions of people it took a long period to witness some innovations in this sector. Moreover, within the travel industry it is noticed that the train and flight ticketing had centralized booking and reservation process implemented much earlier than bus travel industry. The bus operators are scattered across the country largely supported by conventional travel agents. There was an absolute need for transparency within the industry so that consumers can avail the services of a centralized system where they could be acquainted with the information regarding the total number of bus routes in operation, prices, availability, seat preferences, cancellations, refunds and feedback options.

E-ticketing or electronic ticketing in India is changing the landscape, especially air travel and railways ticketing coming a long way ahead. There are research studies which have discussed that service providers could increase their transactional efficiencies and expand their services by adopting modern IT in revenue management.

Growth Drivers of online travel industry in India:

 (i) Growth of Internet, (ii) Growth in Low-cost transportation option (iii) Secure payment mechanisms

Main Challenges:

 (i) Low margins and high operating costs (ii) Poor internet and credit card penetration

There are several players in this domain Redbus being the market leader, other players are Abhi bus, Simply Bus, Yatra.com and Bus Safar.com. With the redbus revolution, the potential in this arena is not out of sight. The competition in this business comes from basically travel agents and ticketing companies who have presence locally, nationally and few of those who even have an international presence. redbus over the years has adopted a business model which is quite difficult for the competitors to replicate due to which redbus is ahead in the contest.

Indian Bus Industry - An Overview Part 1.

Bus industry is one of the vital integral segments of Indian automobile industry. It is a common widespread public transport in India. The industry comprises of buses that are categorized into school buses, mini buses, tourist buses, deluxe buses, commuter buses and others depending on the use. Owing to the development of infrastructure and roads, connecting to remote places has become easier due to which more and more people are availing bus services. This has greatly contributed to the growth of bus industry. Proliferation of internet, rising income, online bus ticket search and booking, growth in low cost carriers, have further added to the growth of travel market in India

The first motor bus route started on July 15, 1926, and ran between Afghan Church and Crawford Market, Mumbai. The bus fare for the same journey was four annas, i.e 25 paise. Indian bus travel industry is a 15000 crores industry and growing annually at 25 %, with over 3,00,000 tickets sold daily, roughly making it an inventory worth $3bn.Indian bus market which was previously and at times still considered a very unorganized, fragmented and unregulated. However, now the market is slowing moving towards some uniformity and consolidation. Today, India has 5,000 private bus operators with a fleet size ranging from 5 to 500 buses.Indian bus market has revolutionized in the last 10-12 years,lot of changes have taken place in the functioning of the sector which is adding more convenience and comfort to the passengers. Indian bus market is divided into 4 broad categories

·         Mass market with bus ranging from Rs.22 lakh to 30 lakh. This market has the largest market share of over 60 %.  Rs. 22 lakh is for the non AC bus while an AC bus costs around Rs.30 lakh.

·         Value market with cost of the bus ranging from Rs.40 lakh to Rs.60 lakhs. Buses like ISUZU,Swaraj Mazda, MAN etc. occupy this segment and this segment has only 2 % market share.

·         Premium bus market is the market where bus range from Rs.80 lakh to a 1.2 crores. Volvo, Mercedes, Scania are the key players in this segment. This segment has a market share of around 25 % and it is this segment which is bringing about the changes in the industry.

·         Super premium bus market with cost of the bus from Rs.1.5 crores upwards. CLUB ONE, Olivia, SVLL connect form part of this segment and it occupies a niche market share of 1 %. The target group for this segment is the affluent class and people with deep pockets. Customers who prefer to travel in luxury.

The coming years will bring in consolidation, Lots of improvement and growth. The seeds of the future plants are being sown and good times lie ahead.

Leader,Guide,Mentor,Thinker,Visionary

 8th June 1938 a small boy took birth in Rajkot in a family of 8 consisting of 3 Brothers & 3 Sisters, Little did anyone know that this small boy  in the years to come will reshape the way people travel.  The world knows this small boy as Lt Sh Rasiklal Damjibhai Golwala, A visionary, a leader, a mentor, a guide, an philantrophist, a passionate man, a go getter and most importantly a pioneer who laid the strong foundation of Eagle Corporation Pvt Ltd..Eagle today is an household name in Gujarat as its various business includes Petrol Pump,  several Automobile dealerships namely Kinetic Honda, Ford,Vespa,Suzuki 2 Wheelers,Ashok Leyland Commerical Vehicles, Clearing & Forwarding agent for Indian & Multinational brands like Adani Wilmar's Fortune,Havmor,Pepsi, Amul Diary  & above all  Eagle Travels , the flagship company of the group into Bus operations & services across 6 states & 30 cities now.

Sh Rasiklal was very passionate about travel, Bus,Comfort. He always had this in the back of his mind to do something in this field,Opportunity knocked at the door in the form of an arrival of a marriage party in Rajkot from Mumbai & He was given the task to arrange a bus for the travel of this marriage party from railway station, All bookings were done & everything was in order when at the last moment the bus operator ditched, this incident left Sh Rasiklal take instant decision to find an alternative & also planted the seed to commence a travel service. In the year 1972 he self drove a dosz truck from Delhi to Rajkot converted into a bus & started renting it out to Marriage party & corporate tourist booking under the name of "Saurashtra tourist corporation".

"Fortune always favours the brave". In the year 1976 Railway bridge at Damanaganga river collapsed due to heavy rains & the traffic was badly hit. It was in this year when for the first time the bus was made to run between Rajkot & Mumbai.

 This last 5 years gave him enough courage & Confidence to start a full fledged travel services which today is known as EAGLE TRAVELS. A small humble beginning from 2 buses to just one city has today grown to over 200 buses, covering over 30 cities in 6 states with over 80 departures in a day.

Sh Rasiklal was a passionate man & also a visionary, He wanted to be the best in whatever he was involved with such integrity make him adopt EAGLE as the name & logo of the company.He always believed in "BEING A STEP AHEAD.....ALWAYS", this became the motto of the company, EAGLE the king of birds is known for its agility & precision, Sh Rasiklal believed in imbibing such standards in his company & he has been successful in doing so. Sh Rasiklal is survived by his 4 children who handle all the business of Eagle Corporation. Eagle Travels is being helmed by Sh Jayendra Bavaria & he is now trying to imbibe the same learning in his children & Sh Darshan Bavaria has started to groom himself for the days to come.

Our Founder Chairman was also very active socially & philanthropically . He was Counsellor of Rajkot Municipal Corporation for 7 years, He was also the Trustee of Lohana Samaj & along with Trustee in several temples, He did carry out such initiates for the upliftment of Poor  & allowed free travel to sick patients & gave school fees for underprivileged children. He was also a very research oriented person, Once he was diagonised with Diabetics, he carried out several research & produced a powder to help reduce & control Diabetics, He was so passionate & altruism that he got a pulverising machine in order to create this powder in bulk & give it away for free to people who were having diabetics. He did this without fail for almost a decade & there used to be a long queue of people to get it.

He was always full of energy & ideas & focused on what best to give to his customers so that they can have a comfortable journey, Such enthusiasm & dedication towards service made his go to Singapore & get projector system in order to provide entertainment for passengers, He did this in the year 1978-79 when television was also not heard off. 

We are thankful to the almighty for giving us such a leader, a Mentor, a  guide & above all a noble person who brought a revolution & change. 

Wishing you a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY. We are sure you will be blessing us from the heaven. With the motto to carry on your shown path.