DJ Venkatesh
Nimbudera, Feb 19: The STS bus from Nimbudera to Port Blair which left this morning at 5 AM with its full capacity, with mostly ladies, suffered several breakdowns on its way to Port Blair today.
Due to technical faults, the bus was earlier sent to workshop, after that when the bus reached Middle strait Jetty the bus got flat tyre and soon after that the Battery of the bus reportedly partially exploded, which left the entire bus covered with thick cloud of smoke. The Bus driver anyhow asked all passengers to abandon the bus immediately.
At about 12:15 PM STS Diglipur Express reached Middle Strait with a spare Battery from Baratang Workshop and after replacing the same the Nimbudera Express again got struck after heading 4 kilometres inside the jungle from Middle Strait jetty. All the passengers were then transferred to the Diglipur Express which was already full.
The passengers were heavily harassed during today’s journey. Passengers complained that despite having knowledge of technical problems in the bus the STS did not provide any spare bus for the passengers.
Local media have reported about pathetic condition of STS buses, mostly those, which are operated in ATR route. Today passengers of Nimbudera Express were lucky that no one suffered any injury after explosion of battery. Hope the STS Department will focus on repairing the buses before any major accidents.
