Illegal parking of long distance buses on approach road near the Sitaramdera bus terminus and along Mango bridge is giving rise to traffic jam and posing mishap threat for commuters. The situation gets out of control during peak traffic hours and during entry of heavy vehicles.

According to an estimate, more than 35,000 passengers take around 400 buses daily for various destinations in Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha from the Sitaramdera bus terminus sprawling in 1.5 acre of land.

Bus operators though admit of problems of traffic congestion but express their helplessness. Upender Sharma, senior official of Jamshedpur Bus Owners Association said that there are frequent traffic jams as there is not enough space at the bus terminus to park the buses and we have to park buses outside the terminus.

Civic body, Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) claimed that such a situation will continue till the proposed inter-state bus terminus (ISBT) comes up in Mango.

 “The state government is working on construction of a modern and spacious ISBT along NH-33 in Mango and till that time we have to bear with such problems. The traffic police should also ensure that long distance buses do not halt on roads to pick-up passengers,” said JNAC city manager Ranjan Pandey.

The commuters complained that often they confront with such situation.  Long queue of vehicles including trucks, trailers, auto-rickshaws, cars and two-wheelers could be seen at the Mango bridge approach roads.

The office-goers and others too faced a tough time crossing through the bridge. Many of them got delayed in reaching their offices. Due to the jam the No Entry regulations could not be followed today.

“Traffic management is one of the biggest challenges. Traffic diversion which the traffic administration is talking off as part of arrangement during the important days is nothing but, doing the duty for the name sake,” said commuter.

A section of commuters also blamed the traffic department for its inability to control the situation. “There would not have been such a chaos had there been traffic constables to manage the situation," complained a commuter.  Traffic police were deployed to control the situation two hours after the jam began. A section of youths also volunteered in managing the traffic.

A traffic constable deployed on the Mango bridge admitted the fact that traffic congestion have become a regular phenomenon. " With expansion programmes of Tata Steel and other companies, there has been a rise in the number of heavy vehicles. The pitiable road condition is also to be blamed as it often causes breakdown of vehicles," he said.