Bhubaneswar, Dec. 6: The bus bay near Kalinga Stadium serve as a parking space for private vehicles and autorickshaws, while pavement dwellers use one near Acharya Vihar to dry their clothes.
The bus bays that were constructed for the improvement of the city bus service and efficient traffic management on major roads have become useless, as buses do not enter them.
This is not a good commentary for a place that figures in the smart city list, said an urban planner.
These bays are designated areas along the roads that were built to allow passengers to board and alight from buses without affecting the flow of traffic.
The public works department has so far constructed 22 of the 55 bus bays necessary for better traffic management. Bus bays have come up along Vidyut Marg, Janpath and Sachivalaya Marg.
While the residents continue to suffer, the authorities seem more interested in playing the blame game.
"The bays remain only on pen and paper. Several are ready, but they were never handed over to us or anybody told us to do so, hence we are not using them," said a senior official of the Dream Team Sahara (DTS), a private company managing city buses on behalf of Bhubaneswar-Puri Transport Services Limited (BPTSL), on condition of anonymity.
DTS chief operating officer Sudhanshu Jena said: "The bus bays were constructed on government land for the use of the BPTSL. When the BPTSL will ask us to use the bays, we can use them. But first, the works department has to construct and them hand over those to the BPTSL."
PWD chief engineer (roads) B.C. Pradhan said: "The 22 bays are ready and the DTS people are not using them. It is simply their attitude. Otherwise, when it is written near the locations as bus bays, who is stopping them from using them?"
Mayor and BPTSL chairman Ananta Narayan Jena said: "We will first see the readiness of the bays and ask the DTS authorities to make them useful. We will also ensure that all the 55 bus bays are constructed in the city for the city bus service."
Bijay Mishra, a resident said: "While city buses have failed to use the bus bays so far, the space is used as parking lots by private vehicles, taxis and autorickshaws. It shows that the money invested to construct the bus bays have gone to waste. The civic authorities should take help of other departments to co-ordinate the use of the bus bays as soon as possible."
"The city bus service started on October 10, 2010. The bays were planned a year later and 22 of those were in place by the end of 2013. However, they have not been used so far. It is high time the authorities take note and make them functional and also ask the agencies concerned to complete the remaining 33 bays," said Mishra.
