Commuters affected badly, seek LG’s intervention
BASHARAT KAREEM
SRINAGAR, Jan 21: Lack of public transport facility during the evening hours within the city and the outskirts of Srinagar is giving a tough time to the general public, especially women, specially abled persons and the students.
The public transport mostly mini buses plying on various uptown routes including Panthachowk, Rawalpora, Rangreth, Wanabal-Humhama, Chanapora, Nowgam and Bagat-Humhama, remains generally off the roads soon after the sun set thus causing serious inconvenience to the commuters and the issue has been prevalent since very long.
During the onset of the winter season when days are shorter, it becomes even more worrisome for the commuters to find a bus as the drivers opt to depart early owing to freezing temperatures. The commuters are forced to opt for the alternative services like auto rickshaws and cabs, who likewise take advantage of their situation by overcharging them.
The residents of Rawalpora, Rangreth, Wanbal-Humhama, Chanapora, Panthachowk, Nowgam and Humhama have expressed their dissatisfaction and have been making repeated requests to the administration to resolve the issue but to no avail.
Every day as the day passes by hundreds of commuters could be seen waiting for the public transport near Bakshi Stadium in order to return home from work. They have to wait for the hours in order to get glimpse of a sumo and sometimes it becomes even more challenging since most of the Tata sumos already come overloaded leaving the commuters in distress. The women and especially children returning back to home from tuition centers suffer the most.
“After waiting for hour’s, we hardly find any sumo or bus and even if we get in to one, we have to wait hours in traffic jams because of which we reach home very late and cannot spend enough time with our family,” Zahid sheikh, a local commuter from Nowgam told Kashmir Despatch.
Adding further, Zahid said, “The men can somehow manage to travel back to home but for women, students and the specially abled persons, it is not safe to be out till late evening.”
Public Transport is the fundamental requirement for the everyday movement of the people and non-availability of it also puts a big question mark on the government’s claim of transforming Srinagar into a Smart City as no city can be smart until it has the network of transport that connects to all its routes.
Many commuters who talked to the Kashmir Despatch appealed to the Lt. Governor to intervene into the matter. While contacting ARTO Srinagar, Arif Parvaiz Shah said, “A team has been deployed to look into this matter and hopefully the issue will be resolved soon”.
