As many as ten 42-seated city buses procured by the municipal authority here to ply in the urban areas are gathering dust. The buses worth of about Rs 7.5 crore were allotted to the municipality and launched with much publicity in Baleswar on August 15, 2017. The district has received a fleet of 10 buses under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, (JnNurm).
While the service was to begin in Baleswar since 2014, it could only take off from August 15 last year. The buses were to ply to different prominent rural pockets, including tourists destinations, mainly Chandipur, Panchalingeswar, Khirachora Gopinath temple, Remuna and Chandaneswar, etc. Out of 10 buses, while four could operate through private parties in different routes, Purunabaleswr-Mitrapur, Station Square-Sajnagarh, Somnathpur –Balaramgadi, and between Station square and Soro via Rasalpur, the others remained idle as there were no takers and non finalisation of routes. Again, the buses which were running in four routes were withdrawn after 4-5 months of launching.
Currently, all these 10 buses are off the road and parked in front of Gandhi Smruti Bhawan and are gathering dust. Some of them have become defunct being idle for months without running on roads.
Intellectuals while slamming the massive loss to the State exchequer, attributed the it to lack of foresight and panning of the administration. They said even though the service started in Baleswar with much delay, yet they failed to execute it with proper planning.
The municipal authority however stated that the buses couldn’t run in the town areas because of narrow and congested roads. The private parties who had taken the buses on lease didn’t evince interest to run them.
“The service began hurriedly without proper planning. They were given to the leasees without considering the routes and economic viability aspects. As a result, initially they faced oppositions from the private operators on the routes and then bore losses. More so, the route permit was not as per proper format,” said a staff of the municipality office requesting anonymity. Municipality Executive Officer Kanhu Charan Malik said, “Initially the town bus service got delayed as permit for operating of buses was obtained through online system. The route chart for the buses was reworked in view of road conditions and traffic. Due to multiple problems, the service was stalled. However, one of the main reasons is the size of the buses. Since they are bigger compared to the road width, the operators faced a tough task to ply them in certain patches in almost all routes. The problem was apprised to the department and the State Government directed to return them to the Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT). These buses are returned to CRUT in papers and we would be procuring 10 buses of 23 seat capacity suiting to our roads.”
Sources said a new bus stand which was to be built in the outskirts of the city in Remuna on 8- acre of land to accommodate 140 buses by the Baleswar Regional Improvement Trust (BRIT) is without any headway after eight years of beginning.
