This story is from June 16, 2019

What ails Roorkee’s public transport system?

What ails Roorkee’s public transport system?
Roorkee: Though Roorkee is a moderate-size town, it is little prepared to cater to the transportation needs of thousands of its residents.
Except for Matador mini buses, there are hardly any other public transport options available to take people from Roorkee to nearby villages. These buses ply on two major routes — the Kaliyar route and the Manglaur route.
And while these mini buses have been the sole public transport mode since the ’90s, the service suffers from a range of issues, including overloading and poor maintenance of buses, among others.
At present, an average of 8,000 passengers travel through the Kaliyar and Manglaur route on a daily basis but only 24 mini buses ply on the Roorkee-Purkazi route (via Manglaur) and only 35 buses run on the Roorkee-Roshnabad route (via Kaliyar). The lack of buses, say observers, is what leads to overloading.
Further, the buses suffer from shoddy maintenance. Broken window glass panes, rickety old seats, torn seat cushions, rusted grab-handles, dimly-lit or damaged head and tail lights and poorly functional engines are common issues with these vehicles.
Commuters also allege that these buses take a lot of time to cover even a short distance. “Kaliyar is just 8 kilometres away from Roorkee but the mini bus takes around 50 minutes for the journey. The reason is that bus drivers wait for the bus to overload before starting the trip,” said Anwar Rana, a Piran Kaliyar resident.
Also, there are hardly any passenger stands on the route. As a consequence, the commuters are forced to take refuge from the scorching heat or rain in the nearby shops while waiting for the bus. This is something that is also acknowledged by bus operators. “There is no passenger stand on the Kaliyar route due to which the commuters are incovenienced especially during bad weather conditions,” Vinod Puri, president of mini buses’ owners association told TOI.
Meanwhile, Jyoti Shankar Mishra, Roorkee transport officer when queried about the issue, told TOI, “Due to the ongoing Char Dham Yatra, we are busy checking vehicles coming from other states. However, we still conduct drives regularly to check the fitness of mini buses, ovberloading by drivers as well as other issues perttaining to these vehicles.”
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