ProMASS News
Agartala: July 09, 2019: The State Government is set to re-introduce town bus services in Agartala – particularly overhauling the public transport system to make it an efficient alternative system. Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb also directed the Tripura Road Transport Corporation (TRTC) to this end. Accordingly, TRTC is gearing up to resume town bus services, after a long gap, in the city before Durga puja.
As part of re-introduction of full-fledged services, TRTC conducted trial runs in two routes out of total five routes for bus services.
TRTC Chairman Deepak Majumder said, “Trial runs were conducted in —route No.1 (Battala to Ranirbazar) and route No. 3(GBP hospital to Tripura Central University) out of total five routes. If everything falls in the right direction 16 buses will be plying on these routes from the first week of coming August”.
He also added that the services would be started by September next. “The government will introduce 40 new buses in altogether 5 routes of the city. The main focus of the government is to overhaul the public transport system in the city and TRTC has been given the responsibility to carry out the work,” he told.
Reportedly, deteriorated public transport system in Agartala city has emerged as a major concern. Most of the town buses of the city are appeared to be irregular. Regular office-goers do not even know the schedule of buses. On the other hand, other public transportation mediums are becoming costlier and uneasy for the passengers day by day.
Auto-rickshaws are considered to be the main mode of transportation in the city coupled with newly introduced E-rickshaws and Cycle-rickshaws. But, authoritarian trade union culture, which emerged during 25 years long Left rule is enough to harass the passengers. Charging unauthorized fair, violating the limits of carriage and most importantly absence of proper appellate body against the Auto-rickshaw pullers, very often left city dwellers annoyed with the system.
This crisis led to another big shift. People being irritated with the situation switched to private use of vehicles. The purchase of two wheelers and four wheelers increased in manifold since last few decades. But, less to get relieved, this has only added to the problems. due to lack of parking points, illegal parking and rampant violation of traffic rules lead to messy traffic jams almost everyday during office hours. Moreover, increased vehicles caused air pollution.
“An efficient public transport system can solve all these problems and also can reduce the quotient of pollution being emitted with the rising number of vehicles. It would also prove handy in curbing out-of-pocket expenditure in fuel consumption,” observes a city dweller.
