Long queues, footboard passengers, as buses stay off the roads on poll day

Kolkata: Commuters within the city and the suburbs faced problems on Saturday due to less availability of buses and autos as a substantial number have been requisitioned by the State Election Commission (SEC) for Panchayat polls, which were observed on Saturday.

The problem had begun after 10 am on Thursday as most of the bus owners were asked to report their buses for Panchayat elections by noon. The bus owners on Wednesday had warned of this inconvenience due to the shortage of buses starting from Thursday, Friday and to some extent Saturday. According to them, the situation will come under control from Monday onwards.

Around 1,000 to 1,500 buses were taken for the Panchayat polls. There are 86 routes under Kolkata Motor Vehicles and if other routes under neighbouring districts are considered then there are at least 120 routes.

In these routes, at least 5,000 buses ply daily. Since 1,000 to 1,500 buses have been requisitioned by the SEC, commuters may suffer because of irregular bus services, the general secretary of City Suburban Bus Service Titu Saha had informed earlier.

Bus services remained disrupted in various routes, particularly in Barasat, Budge Budge and Diamond Harbour Road, amongst others. According to one of the commuters travelling to Park Street from Howrah usually, they need to wait for a maximum of 10 minutes for a bus, but today they had to wait longer. Many people arrive in the city from suburban areas by train and reach Kolkata via Ballygunge, Dumdum, Bidhannagar, Sealdah and Howrah stations. These people were finding it difficult to get buses to reach their offices.

Apart from this, a shortage of autos on the road was also seen in different pockets of the city.

According to Debraj Ghosh, a union leader on the Gariahat-Garia route, 50 per cent fewer autos are plying on two routes–Golpark to Garia and Golpark to Patuli. Around 400-450 autos are generally plied on daily in these two routes.