Former Dhenkanal Municipality chairman and senior advocate Surendra Kumar Mishra, in a letter to the State Commerce and Transportation Minister, has urged to redress a long standing grievance of Dhenkanal-bound bus passengers at the Cuttack bus stand.
Mishra alleged that the buses coming from Cuttack to Angul, Talcher and Pallahara are passing through Dhenkanal but they do not allow Dhenkanal passengers to board the bus.Very often, the Dhenkanal passengers are asked by bus conductors to travel in standing. After all the seats are filled up by the passengers for Angul, Talcher and Pallahara, they take the Dhenkanal passengers who are made to wait till the last moment the buses leave.
Reportedly the Dhenkanal passengers sometimes are compelled to purchase tickets from Cuttack to Angul, said Mishra, who lamented that the long standing problem of the bus passengers of the district headquarters town surprisingly had gone unheeded despite protests and dharanas in the last thirty years.
He said that all the assurances given by the district administration and the Transport Commissioners earlier at various points of time were not fulfilled. Even Dhenkanal passengers are misbehaved and manhandled by the hired goons of the bus-owners at the Cuttack bus-stand, he pointed out, suggesting that it should be made mandatory to keep a certain percentage of seats for the Dhenkanal passengers in the buses passing through the town or else their permit be withdrawn.