Mohammed Sajid
Port Blair, May 11: This has become a common practice for almost all private bus drivers to illegally stop buses in major junctions in city, for more than 15 to 20 minutes to look for more and more passengers.
A trip from Garacharma to Chatham usually takes 30 to 40 minutes in a car but for private buses it takes more than an hour, which often leaves passengers in trouble.
Passengers complaint that the buses usually stops in major junctions like Bhatu Basti, Dairy Farm, Goal Ghar for more than 15 to 20 minutes, until and unless all seats are occupied.
“In between if they see another bus of same route is approaching from behind they immediately start the bus and drive too fast. This is the reason why most of the bus accidents take place in city,” complained a passenger.
Sadly the drivers of Private buses neither fear the State Transport Service nor the Police Department.
“If we protest, they usually threaten us and misbehave with us. There should be a helpline, where such troubled bus passengers can register a complaint if buses are stopped illegally in any place for long duration,” said the passenger.
However, the Secretary of Transport has refused to reply to any question of Andaman Sheekha, giving excuse of Model Code of Conduct. Hope the Traffic Police unit will atleast look into this matter.
This is very true. As it can be seen at Chatham jetty that when any boat from Bambooflat arrives, all the buses flock the area and blow their horns as if they are the first to move. On the contrary, when any boat from Dundus point arrive, there will be fever buses and that also will move only after any boat from Bflat arrive. Only solution to that would be installing “time booth” at designated area by STA and all the route buses according to time slot should ply and get their time punched,and any bus coming before time or after time should be heavily penalised. This arrangement would also be effective during sundays and holidays, wherein many buses go off the road and such “time booths” would record the same.