Bus shortage hits commuters in Guntur

Guntur: For the first time in three decades, the private city bus operators are facing a tough time in terms of vehicle fitness and the top officials of various government departments are so particular about the condition of the buses. As per the figures furnished by the transport department, there are 120 city buses plying in the city and in the suburban areas.

And excepting a handful of them, all the buses are more than 20 years old and commenting on the fitness, one of the officers said that most of them are only fit for scrap sale and not to ply on the city streets.

Kona Sasidhar, District Collector, issued clear instructions to all the departments concerned to prevent the outdated vehicles. During the last week, the Road Transport Authority (RTA) seized more than 15 buses. Afraid of the action of the RTA officers, owners of many buses had stopped the services resulting in only a fifteen or so public carriers running the skeletal services as of now.

And the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) regional office in Guntur introduced a few good looking, cozy and comfortable with cushion seats’ buses in selected routes but officials failed miserably in running the city buses in a well organised manner.

No one exactly knows about the arrivals and departures of the APSRTC city bus at any given stage. Practically, the experiment of RTC was a big failure but they are still optimistic about the revival of the services.

Cycle rickshaws are disappearing fast and the number of autorickshaws is increasing by the day and they are the only means of transport which goes to every nook and corner of the city. But the people always complained that most of the auto drivers were creating trouble and rude towards passengers. Commuters are forced to ride the overloaded autos since they do not have any other vehicles to reach their destinations.

Nearly three decades ago, in the place of large sized city buses, mini vehicles were introduced in Guntur city and they controlled the transport services but the owners of the buses conveniently forgotten about the fitness of the vehicles and what we see today on roads are a very old, worn out damaged buses releasing polluting fumes.

The District Collector has decided to get rid of the old buses and RTA started raiding and seized nearly twenty vehicles. And another 100 buses went into hiding and the troubles of the commuters compounded. It was estimated the population of Guntur after the bifurcation of the state, including the visitors will be around 10 lakhs and the transport facilities in the city, is not enough even for one lakh people.

The people of Guntur would have hardly 20 city buses and the paramount question remains what would be the plight of those lakhs of passengers.
By increasing the number of RTC city buses and introducing private city buses with perfect fitness and controlling the rude drivers of autos will improve the situation to some extent but known for its lack of coordination among themselves, the government departments might take years to reach a solution for the public transport problem that is the real cause of worry for the citizens of Guntur.

By B Rajendra Kunmar