Commuters livid over closure of bus routes, short-termination
Times of India | 5 January 2025
Kolkata: The public-private partnership model, which allows private players to run state-owned buses, has drawn the commuter's ire barely six months into its operations that is now plagued by short termination of routes and the closure of two popular routes.
The situation has deteriorated to such an extent, with services hitting rock bottom across all such routes, that passengers launched protests at Joka and Tollygunge this weekend. They demanded the reintroduction of the routes by the government directly, instead of the state buses being run by private players as per the Bus Franchise Operators (BFOs) model.
The private players were asked to pay Rs 14,000 to the government each month, besides bearing the cost of diesel and maintenance. At present, at least two such routes — C-8 and S-47 — have seen the public players surrendering the route back to the government. D-10, a new route, was launched from Amtala to Barasat to supplement the C-8 route (Joka-Barasat) with a revised and higher fare.
"The PPP model licence fee is very high. In addition, C.0-8 route buses provided to us are old ones and are diesel guzzlers. For S-47, there was an acute passenger crisis," claimed Titu Saha, general secretary of the City Suburban Bus Service. When contacted, WBTC, who ran these routes, said they were reviewing the situation and alternative arrangements were being made.
Even the other routes that are still running have come under criticism from passengers. Several of them shared their experiences on the Kolkata Bus-o-pedia Facebook page. "It was 1 pm, and the C-26 bus from Howrah to Baruipur announced it would no longer go to Baruipur, and passengers had to get off. The official fare list disappeared overnight. There is no facility to buy tickets with the WBTC smart card here," said Aniket Banerjee, general secretary of Kolkata Bus-o-pedia.
Similarly, another commuter Shounak Roy claimed the Tollygunge to Barasat D-1A bus had ‘Barasat' written on the board but after travelling more than half the route, the conductor announced that the bus would no longer go to Barasat, and passengers had to take another bus from the airport. "In this way, one after another route is shutting down and no one knows why. Several complaints have surfaced against BFOs. Is the privatization of popular government bus routes truly justified? Why should passengers suffer?" asked Abhiraj Das, another commuter and moderator of the Kolkata Bus-o-pedia page.