Police Commissioner Anupam Agrawal on Wednesday asked the Mangaluru Regional Transport Officer to revise the city bus timings within a month to prevent competition on the service routes by resorting to speeding.
During his first meeting with city bus owners, officials of the Transport Department, the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC), Mangaluru Smart City Limited, and the National Highways Authority of India, Mr. Agrawal asked the NHAI and Mangaluru City Corporation to complete constructing bus shelters at Thokkottu and in 53 places in Mangaluru city in a month.
A television journalist pointed out on the need for authorities to make changes in the city bus timing as the present timing is causing lot of stress for bus drivers and thus resulting in rash driving and accidents.
Deputy Transport Commissioner and Senior Regional Transport Officer P. Ravishankar said that the Transport Department did not go for rationalisation of bus timing because of a stay by the Karnataka High Court.
“As the stay has been vacated, we can now take up rationalisation of bus timing,” Mr. Ravishankar said.
President of Dakshina Kannada Bus Owners’ Association Aziz Parthipady said volume of traffic has drastically increased in the city since the route permits were issued by mentioning the route timing. There is an immediate need for changes in bus timing, especially on routes where there are more than one bus.
When Mr. Agrawal asked the Mangaluru City Corporation Deputy Commissioner (Development) J. Mahesh what action the civic body took on constructing 53 bus shelters in the city based on the letter by his predecessor Kuldeep Kumar R. Jain to the coporation, the officer said he was unaware about the letter. “We are taking action to fill potholes,” Mr. Mahesh said.
Expressing his unhappiness over the delay in pothole filling, Mr. Agrawal said traffic policemen had to fill potholes at some places.
NHAI Assistant Executive Engineer Anirudh Kamath said heavy rains during night was preventing them from filling potholes in Nantoor, Paduva, and KPT junctions on NH 66.
There is a need to divert traffic in the morning for filling up of potholes, Mr. Kamat said.
“If you fail to fill the potholes on time, we will be forced to hold agencies concerned responsible in case of accidents,” Mr. Agrawal warned.
Earlier, Mr. Agrawal displayed on videos of some of recent accidents where a bus conductor and a few other motorists died and suffered grievous injury because of rash driving by bus drivers.
He also showed videos showing how bus drivers slow down their vehicles, especially at Hampankatta, B.R. Ambedkar, and Balmatta junctions to pick up passengers.
Mr. Parthipady asked police to post Home Guards at the busy traffic junctions and said that the association will bear the salary of those Home Guards.
Mr. Agrawal directed Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Geetha Kulkarni to take necessary action on the same.
Mr. Agrawal directed bus owners to prevent footboard travelling. A joint action by the police and the Transport Department will be taken against buses that do not ply on the routes for which permit has been issued, he said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) (Law and Order) Sidharth Goyal and DCP (Crime and Traffic) B.P. Dinesh Kumar were present.
