Private buses operating along the Thripunithura-Pettah-Vyttila stretch will stay off the road from July 15 as part of an indefinite strike called by Bus Operators’ Coordination Committee protesting against the bad condition of the Pettah-Vyttila stretch.
A meeting of the committee held here on Thursday decided to go ahead with the strike plan unless the Public Works Department (PWD) repaired the stretch in a week. It was also decided to call off the previously announced one-day token strike on July 10.
“A notice has been issued to the Ernakulam Regional Transport Officer and the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Traffic East,” said a release issued by the committee on Thursday. “The stretch is in real bad shape and unfit for transportation. The PWD authorities had promised to repair the road in a week,” it added.
The operators also complained that it took around 25 minutes for buses to cover the two-and-a-half-km stretch between Pettah and Vyttila, thanks to the poor condition of the road. Moreover, it takes another 15 minutes to traverse the one-km stretch between Pettah and SN Junction, they said.
“The potholes at both the turns at Pettah remain as bad as they were despite multiple rounds of patch works. Instead of tarring, the area at the turns should be laid with interlocking bricks. The authorities are indifferent to addressing traffic logjams,” they lamented.
The diversion of smaller vehicles from Pettah via Kundannoor; ‘no entry’ for cargo vehicles from Pettah via Champakkara; permanent posting of a traffic police officer at the Champakkara market junction; taking measures to ban haphazard parking along the road near Champakkara market, and moving drain slabs from the middle of the road near Champakkara School to the sides were among the suggestions made by the operators.
