Pick-up facility from old bus stand may be withdrawn

Pick-up facility from old bus stand may be withdrawn
The Hindu

HUBLI: The North-West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) has decided to withdraw the pick-up and dropping facility for passengers to and from the old bus stand complex in Hubli near Rani Kittur Chennamma Circle. A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the City Infrastructure Improvement Committee here recently.

The committee decided at the meeting chaired by Deputy Commissioner Gourav Gupta to stop the facility from the middle of September and move the Dharwad city bus stand to the new premises on the National Highway. P. Manivannan, Commissioner of the Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation, who holds additional charge as Managing Director of the NWKRTC, also attended the meeting. Mr. Manivannan was not available for comments.

The dilemma of bus passengers began when the new bus stand located at Gokul on the western fringe of Hubli was commissioned during the fag-end of the J.H. Patil regime in April 1999.

The NWKRTC authorities shifted all mofussil bus operations to the new venue. Bus passengers found the new arrangement cumbersome and inconvenient as the new bus stand is not in the heart of the city. Also, the facilities at the new bus stand were woefully inadequate and continue to be so.

Furore

This led to a furore with people demanding that the bus stand be shifted back to the old venue. Also, private operators made hay by cashing in on the inconvenience of the travellers. The NWKRTC was forced to introduce the pick-up facility from the old bus stand.

This proved to be mutually beneficial as the passengers found it inconvenient to board buses from the old bus stand, which is centrally located and well-connected. The NWKRTC, to its surprise, found that it could make good its loss of income necessitated by the change of venue of the bus stand.

K.S. Sharma, president of the Akhila Karnataka Rajya Raste Sarige Mahamandala, is critical of the move and described it as retrograde.

Campaign

Prof. Sharma said it is because of the campaign carried out by his organisation that the management was forced to introduce the pick-up facility for passengers.

This increased the revenue of the corporation by Rs. 1 lakh a day from Hubli alone, he said.

The NWKRTC, which has already yielded ground to private operators as far as city services is concerned, will further lose if the pick up facility is withdrawn.

The move on the part of the NWKRTC to run shuttle services between the old and the new bus stand for the convenience of mofussil travellers is also impractical as none of the passengers saddled with luggage will be in a position to travel on their own.

Prof. Sharma said his organisation will take up the issue with the Transport Minister soon.