Four agencies pulled up for neglecting bus shelters

GHMC issues notices to them for failing to maintain and modernise them

Action, at last:Many of the bus shelters given on contract to private agencies are in a deplorable condition and the GHMC has decided to crack down on them for poor maintenance. Photo: Nagara Gopal

Damaged seating, worn out seats or non-existent, missing flooring or in disarray, gaping roof with holes or missing fully or partly, accumulated debris, rusted material, etc. You could be mistaken if these bus shelters are in some remote area but no, that is the current state of some of the “modern” ones in the city.

Few years after winning contracts under the Public Private Partnership's Build, Operate & Transfer (BOT) mode, GHMC has discovered to its shock that that a significant number of them are in rank bad shape and totally useless for bus commuters because of poor maintenance.

What is even more galling is that the hoarding/ad agencies which took up the projects and earning decent sums of money as revenue from the advertisements on the bus shelters have not even bothered to “modernise” the facility as promised in the agreement they had entered into. Quite conveniently, they have been reaping the dividends by making little or no changes at all to the existing old bus shelters.

The Advertisement wing has begun a survey to ascertain the present state of bus shelters built by various agencies and have realised they have been sleeping for quite some time.

Poor condition

At least 50 of the around 200 bus shelters identified in three stretches alone – Malakpet to Moosarambagh crossroads, Moosarambagh crossroads to Dilsukhnagar and Dilsukhnagar to Kothapet, were found to be awful. Culprit agencies include Prakash Arts Moving Media, Sri Venkateshwara Enterprises, Uni Ads and Calibre.

Additional Commissioner (Traffic, Transportation & Advertisements) S. Subba Rao said notices were issued to the four agencies to rectify the discrepancies noticed within a week and submit a compliance report or face the prospect of removing them without any further notice. In fact, the search team recommended 10 such shelters be removed immediately.

Other 700 bus shelters on different roads which were expected to be turned into ‘modern' too by the agencies will be checked in phases, said Mr. Rao. Ad boards in 30 auto bays were disbanded following the realisation that the BOT period was completed long time ago.