With anxiety writ all over their face, Mumbaikars ventured out of their homes on Monday morning to get to their workplaces after 11-long weeks, only to spend hours on end either in queues or get stranded en route because of a limited number of public buses in operation and traffic snarls in various parts of the metropolis.
As the maximum city – long known as a city that never sleeps, virtually woke up on Monday morning after the Maharashtra Government allowed 10 per cent attendance at private offices, hundreds and thousands left their homes early in the morning to become the first set of lot to report to their duty, only to face unprecedented hurdles en route.
With the suburban trains, called the city’s lifeline, and the Metro services still not having resumed operations, Mumbaikars – hailed often for their quintessential resilience ---had to depend on road transportation, a thing that they loathe during the normal times.
As early as at 7 am, there were serpentine queues of private vehicles at the two entry points to the city –Mulund toll naka on the north-eastern side and Dahisar toll post on the northern side. Before long, there were major traffic snarls along the Eastern Express Highway, Western Express Highway, Eastern Freeway and other main roads that lead up to the downtown south Mumbai where a majority of offices are located, with vehicles virtually crawling.
Even the people working at Bandra-Kurla Complex, Andheri and Goregaon had a horrid time reaching their work stations. Not unexpectedly, the attendance was relatively lower at private offices than the mandated 10 per cent because of lack of adequate transportation facilities – coupled with chaos triggered by long-winding queues at bus stops and massive traffic snarls en route to offices.
With State transport and BEST buses reserved for them, the state government employees made it larger number to Mantralaya (the state secretariat) than the employees at the private offices.
Meanwhile, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)-run BEST and Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) operated a limited number of public buses resulting in never-ending queues of commuters waiting to catch buses at bus-stops or depots in the city suburbs.
As per the relaxed guidelines, the Maharashtra government – beginning Monday – has allowed ten per cent of employees at private offices and 15 per cent staff in government offices. Similarly, all shops and establishments – except the malls, cinemas, restaurants, barber shops and beauty parlors, etc – have been permitted to reopen on odd-even days on each side of the roads.