Bhubaneswar, July 12: The city bus service continues to face problems even one year and nine months after it hit the roads.

Despite the construction of the main terminus at Pokhariput being incomplete, the bus operators are being asked by the state government to move to the semi-constructed facility by Friday.

The buses now use the Master Canteen bus depot.

On top of it, the signage along the bus route, which are supposed to display route numbers and timings, are yet to be put to use with nothing written on them. One such signage near Bhimatangi has been enclosed within a boundary wall erected by the railway authorities.

Construction on at the bus terminus in Pokhariput and (above) a signboard for displaying bus information lies inside a wall constructed by the railways. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

“We will ask the officials of Dream Team Sahara, the bus operators, to shift the signage post and put it on the road,” said a senior official of the Bhubaneswar-Puri Transport Service Limited (BPTSL).

“Some differences on the issue of sharing of advertisements are delaying the process of putting information on the signage. But things will be sorted out soon,” said the official.

Speaking on the shifting of the terminal to Pokhariput, mayor Ananta Narayan Jena, who is also the chairman of the BPTSL, said: “The operators were asked to shift their buses as the operation has to start from Pokhariput and we have to do it. Once they start using the new terminal, the facilities will start coming one after another.”

On the signage issue, he assured that the operators would be asked to resolve the matter and start putting up information on the boards.

Dream Team Sahara officials, however, said the government agencies were neither completing the development work at the main terminal nor the five origin and destination terminals.

They should be handed over to the operators as soon as possible, said the officials.

Bobby Parida, an IT professional, who takes the city buses to Infocity at Chandaka Industrial Estate from Pokhariput, said: “The signage are a must for efficient handling of the city bus service and the authorities should take it up seriously. The citizens are not demanding a service like the Delhi Metro. But why can’t they have a city bus service that runs efficiently? This just shows the incompetence of the local administration.”

The incomplete main terminal at Pokhariput and the five origin and destination terminals, apart from the incomplete signage are causing a lot of problems for the bus operators and commuters.

The people who face the most problems are tourists, who do not have a clear idea of which bus goes where.

“There is a serious lack of coordination between all the departments that are operating the bus service,” said Anuj Kumar Sahu, a resident of VSS Nagar.

Dream Team Sahara is running the service in a public-private-partnership mode under an MoU signed with BPTSL.

The service was extended to Cuttack on May 16 last year with chief minister Naveen Patnaik flagging off the first bus from Biju Patnaik Park in Cuttack.

Initially, the government had provided 10 buses under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission scheme.

Later, five more buses were added in July. Another five buses were pressed into service in September.

At present, 20 buses are operating between the twin cities.