Shelterless, buses stop in the middle of road

It’s worse in darkness of night

Heavy risk: Commuters wait in the open in absence of bus shelter in Hyderabad.

Removal of bus shelters at many locations to make way for the Metro Rail project has become the latest among the woes of the commuters in the city.

At quite a few places, due to absence of shelters, drivers themselves get perplexed as to where to stop the bus. Most often, they halt where they find sizeable crowd, which may not be the actual bus stop.

At times, it becomes quite risky too, as the buses do not have enough space for halting, and move on even as commuters scamper to catch them.

Night time riskier

“The stop opposite the Assembly is one such spot. Commuters waiting for buses almost stand on the road, and very often miss a bus, as it barely stops at the location,” says K.Nageshwar Rao, a regular commuter to Saroornagar.

Night hours are riskier, as many buses don’t have well lit display boards. Other stops where shelters are removed include Himayat Nagar, Errum Manzil, Khairatabad, and Malakpet to name a few. TSRTC authorities, however, have no clue of how many shelters were removed in the city.

“Relocation of bus shelters is the job of GHMC. When a shelter needs to be relocated, they ought to conduct a study along with depot managers and local police officials, to find suitable spots to build a new one. However, they just go about removing the shelters without erecting new ones,” says ED of TSRTC A.Purushotham Naik.