Cuttack, Feb. 19: Chittaranjan Mohanty, a resident of Sector-XI at Markatnagar, has to travel at least 500 metres to board a city bus to Bhubaneswar.

He has to either reach Ring Road by 7am to catch a bus or shell out extra money for an autorickshaw to reach Badambadi, from where Bhubaneswar-bound buses are available.

Mohanty is not the lone sufferer. Several other commuters are facing similar inconvenience as city buses have stopped plying through the satellite township since December 17. "What has added to the commuters' woes nowadays is that no city bus plies even on Ring Road after 7am," said Mohanty.

To implement an Orissa High Court order, police have stopped city buses from plying through the Markatnagar residential area.

While disposing of a PIL on the use of residential plots for commercial purposes at Markatnagar, the court had ordered "town buses plying in the area and creating nuisance shall ply at a suitable distance from residential area - the Ring Road area only".

Subsequently, the city buses are now being routed only through the Ring Road without entering the residential area, leaving thousands of commuters to fend for themselves.

"Earlier, commuters across Markatnagar used to get the city bus service right at their doorstep. But now, they have to walk at least 500 metres to board a bus on the Ring Road," said Markatnagar Residents' Committee organising secretary Gadadhar Sahu.

Now, autorickshaws are the only mode of transport for the commuters, who have to travel to Badambadi to board a Bhubaneswar-bound bus. But, the autos are fewer in numbers than the requirement of hundreds of passengers. Worse, many of the autorickshaws allegedly fleece passengers by charging exorbitant rates.

"We are aware of the commuters' plight, but there is very little we can do as we have stopped routing buses through the residential areas following police orders," said Sudhansu Jena, chief executive of the Dream Team Shahara, the private operator running the city bus service.

On an average, 10,000 to 12,000 commuters used to board city buses from Markatnagar to travel to Bhubaneswar daily.

"But routing of the buses only through the Ring Road has practically brought down the number of passengers to less than a hundred," Jena said.

Jena said earlier when the city buses used to ply through the Markatnagar residential areas, 80 per cent of seats got filled up by the time it reached Badambadi.

"But now, we are having difficult times to get the buses filled up during the short stop at Badambadi. As a result, we are incurring heavy loss every day," he said.

Municipal commissioner Gyana Das said: "Keeping in view the plight of commuters from Markatnagar, we have filed a review petition in the high court."