Bhubaneswar, June 9: Commuters and pedestrians will shortly get rid of traffic congestion due to unplanned mushrooming of bus stops near several crossings in the city.

From now onwards, Bhubaneswar Puri Transport Service Limited that manages the city bus service would identify sites for bus stops, and later, shift the ones, which are too close to the traffic squares.

Kalinga Stadium Square, a crossing that connects Jayadev Vihar with Governor's House and Nayapalli with Nicco Park, bears testimony to the fact as to how a bus stop adds to traffic congestion due to its proximity to a crossing. When a bus halts at the square, covering the extreme left lane, cars and other vehicles willing to take the left turn get stuck behind it, and in the process, lead to traffic congestion.

The decision regarding locations of the bus stops was taken today at a meeting, presided over by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation commissioner Krishan Kumar.

The civic body officials, who attended the meeting, also admitted that the city housed several such bus stops, which were too close to the traffic squares creating difficulties in traffic movement.

Kumar, who is also the Bhubaneswar Development Authority vice-chairman, said the decision was taken to involve the transport service in identifying places for locating the bus stops.

He said that from now onwards, whenever any bus stop would be built, the transport service would first visit the locality and identify the spot.

"After the transport service identifies it, the bus stops will be constructed. Then these would be handed over to private parties, who would maintain the structures. They will get 50sqft space to post their advertisements on it. A new model has been designed for this purpose by the development authority," said the corporation's public relations officer Srimanta Mishra.

"It seems as if these stops have been constructed only to put up advertisements. People's interest has not been taken care of. At several places, these bus stops lie unused, while at other places these create traffic jam when a bus halts there," said an official.

At present, the city has 98 bus stops, but there is a need for more than 200 such facilities. Once the construction of the new bus stops is over, the authorities will shift its focus on the 98 old stops.

Besides, at the existing bus stops, there are no information about routes and bus timings. People, who are new to the city, at times, even do not know the name of the locality where they are standing. Now, there will be signage with the map of the route and the bus details.

According to officials, Rs 1.60 lakh has been earmarked for each bus stop.

The public works department have constructed many of these bus stops. Besides, a few private organisations, too, set up sheds and maintain them in certain areas. They also put up their advertisements there. However, the transport service company is not consulted on this.