THEN

NOW

Work on at the city bus terminal at Pokhariput in May and (below) though six months have passed since then, work at the project site continues at slow pace. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 6: Construction of the city bus terminal at Pokhariput remains incomplete despite a government direction to finish the project at the earliest. It has missed deadlines several times in the past.

At a high-level meeting chaired by chief secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik on October 20, secretary of Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) Sourav Garg had said the terminal near Pokhariput would be completed by November. However, the project has hardly made any progress.

Earlier, January 1 was set as the deadline for the bus terminal. The Bhubaneswar-Puri Transport Services Limited (BPTSL), which runs the service, failed to meet the deadline that was revised to June 30. They missed it again.

The Bhubaneswar municipality corporation was hopeful of inaugurating the facility on August 31, which is observed as the Local Self-Government Day.

The corporation was sure about the August date and had printed and distributed cards announcing the terminal’s inauguration.

Even mayor and BPTSL chairman Ananta Narayan Jena had told The Telegraph that the terminal would either be inaugurated on Local Self-Government Day or on the Foundation Day of Bhubaneswar Development Authority, which fell on September 1. That, too, didn’t happen.

Not only the main terminal at Pokhariput, but also the origin and destination (OD) terminals are in the same situation. There were four proposed OD terminals. Though the general administration department has allotted land for this purpose, no progress has been made so far. The BDA is assigned with this job.

The delay in building the main terminal, along with the OD terminals, has resulted in revenue loss for the Dream Team Sahara (DTS), the private operator of city bus service.

“The price of diesel has been hiked. At the same time, absence of OD terminal has forced us to drive all the city buses back to the main terminal at Master Canteen bus depot, resulting in revenue loss,’ said Sudhanshu Jena, chief executive officer of DTS.

The DTS authorities have also blamed the authorities for negligence.

“As the entire project is built under public private partnership mode, the authorities need to ensure they do their job. We are running the bus for one year now without proper amenities. We are also suffering financial loss because of these problems, but the authorities are only deferring the deadlines,” said a senior official of the DTS.

The construction of two ramps has been completed, but the terminal lacks proper facility for cleaning of the buses.

The water tank is too small to meet this demand.

Similarly, the rest rooms are not sufficient for field staff members.

At the same time, the Master Canteen bus depot is also inconvenient for the commuters. The depot does not have toilet and drinking water facilities. It does not even have enough space to contain all the buses. At present, 100 city buses are in operation in the city. Jena, however, said the construction would be completed as early as possible.

“November has just started and we are hopeful that the new terminal would be in operation by this month,” said Jena.

The exclusive depot-cum-bus terminal at Pokhariput will be spread over 4.5 acres and accommodate more than 100 buses.