This time, the campaign will lay focus on five corridors namely, Old Madras Rd, Old Airport Road, Sarjapura Road, Hosur Road, Bannerghatta Road and Outer/ Inner Ring Road.
While the State-run undertaking has earned accolades for encouraging use of public transport concept and reducing vehicular pollution, a few commuters say the BMTC needs to quickly address certain grey areas to confirm its honest intentions of having a bus day, which is being dubbed as a pure revenue generation plan by some.
They cite pathetic and unhygenic conditions on buses plying on the regular routes, rude behaviour of conductors, irregular stoppages, inconsistent service to name a few grievances of the commuters.
“Some ordinary and old buses are stink yards with vegetable leftovers that are not cleaned for days and possibly weeks” rues Suresh C, a commuter from Kengeri.
Another commuter Joe George adds, “The Volvo buses are fine, but the ordinary ones are pathetic...” and observes he would rather commute on his bike.
For Yaiphaba, a bus commuter from North India, the behaviour of the conductors come as a rude shock to many new comers to the city who complain of harassment due to the language barrier. “Once the conductors comes to know that we are from North India, they become harsh and sometimes cheat us by not returning the change. We are not able to say anything as we are new to the city and don’t know Kannada.”, says she
These and other problems such as inconsistency in the plying of buses, apart from irregular stoppages, drivers ignoring ‘less important stops’ also leave many commuters fuming. “It is really irritating when buses don’t stop. The drivers at most times ignore commuters and don’t stop at Kuplatikere on Kanakapura Road. It’s really annoying” says Jitender, a regular BMTC user.
Details can had from www.bmtctravelinfo.in
DH News Service