The Bhubaneswar-Keonjhar OSRTC bus service via Dhenkanal is no more safe and secure to the passengers, thanks to the highhandedness of the staff and the authorities running and controlling the service.
While the two to-and-fro buses flout all rules, especially pertaining to stopovers, freight, passenger comfort and safety, lack of maintenance, rash and negligent driving have made the buses utterly risky, with minor mishaps causing breakdowns at regular intervals.
Most disconcerting has been the behaviour of the conductors to the passengers. While the express buses are stopped like local vehicles, with all the short distance passengers’ fare going to the pocket of the bus staffers, in order to make up for time that is consumed at illegal stopovers, the buses are run at high speeds, often causing accidents. Very recently, while coming fast towards Dhenkanal, the front glass of a bus crashed leaving the driver and a few passengers heavily injured and bleeding. How come, an express bus service goes sans proper and regular maintenance and care of the vehiclesIJ Bursting of tyre, tyre puncture, and other mechanical breakdowns have become a regular affair. On Wednesday last, also a bus rammed into private mini bus from back triggering tension in the area.
It may be noted that the bus service has become highly popular in the tribal belt of Dhenkanal and Keonjhar as mostly the tribal poor are using the buses to ferry themselves in an otherwise forested and interior zone, where road communication is utterly poor. But the recalcitrant staff members of the buses eying to make a fast buck are exploiting the service for their personal gains. So much so that the buses are stopped at not-permissible stopovers to get maximum number of short distance passengers, thereby jam packing the vehicles to the point of suffocation and torture. Unaware about the fare as they are, the tribal passengers are demanded more fare than the actual, which at times leads to scuffle between the passengers and the conductor. Use of rough language, intolerable rush, suffocation and vomiting, apart from occasional petty fights inside the buses make any gentleman’s trip horrible.
Adding fuel to the anger and resentment of the passengers are the illegal freight loading and unloading activities. Not long ago, The Pioneer had brought out a story on how a covert operation is allowed to take place by the bus staff in nexus with some local mafias for unloading several sack full of unknown frights at a forlorn location near the Brahmani bridge on Dhenkanal-Kamakhyanagar route. The bus towards Cuttack is stopped regularly at the place for 10 to 15 minutes and a dozen of sack-filled freights are unloaded to a trolley. Nobody knows what the freights are, nor does the owner of the freight come to picture. Just the sacks are unloaded to the trolley, which after being filled moves to a nearby location and then melts into air. However, after the storey came out in the paper, the operation was slightly changed. Now the buses do not stop at any fixed location, though the unloading of the mysterious freights, God forbid, they are not narcotics, is still continuing.
“There is an urgent need to change the bus staffers and monitor the service regularly for ensuring the convenience and safety of the passengers. The express bus service should be rendered like ordinary one, while the authorities ought to give utmost importance to the proper maintenance of the fleet of buses,” said a passenger from Keonjhar.