A city bus on new route. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 24: The city buses today rolled on a new route between Gada Gopinath Prasad (GGP) colony at Mancheswar and May Fair Square at Jayadev Vihar. Five buses will ply on the route.

Mayor Anant Narayan Jena flagged off the service at the GGP colony. The buses would ply via Laxmi Sagar, Big Bazar, Rajmahal, Governor’s house, Unit VIII DAV school, CRP and Ekamra Kanan Square.

The mayor said the people had been demanding the service on this route. “After several verifications, the route was decided and it would serve larger interest of the citizens. This particular route was not included by previous routes,” said Jena, chairman of Bhubaneswar Puri Transport Services Limited (BPTSL), that manages the bus service.

Today, the buses were seen mostly occupied. Rabi Narayan Senapati, a resident of GGP colony and a state government employee, said there were no bus from his locality to his office near AG Square. “Earlier, I had to either change buses at different squares or take autorickshaw to cover the remaining distance. Now, I can reach office by one bus,” said Senapati.

Similarly, Sushant Pradhan, a resident of Ekamra villa, said he today got a direct bus from his area to the Unit I market. “Earlier, I had to depend on autorickshaws to go for a hangout or shopping. Now, we got one bus to take us directly to the city centre,” said Pradhan.

This is the eleventh route on which the buses had been plying since the city bus service started on October 10 last year. Sudhanshu Jena, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Dream Team Sahara, said the five buses that started plying through this route would cover nearly 35km in one go. All buses are small. “There have been marked 26 bus stops where people can board the bus,” said Jena.

The Sahara officers said till date, 84 out of the 125 buses had been plying on all the eleven routes. The bus service was initially aimed to be run in Bhubaneswar and Puri. Later, Cuttack was added to the plan with public demand and the high court directive. At present, the city buses are plying to Cuttack on two routes. Even Puri got its share eight months after the service had started.

Jena said the buses would run on three other routes in the city, including Bhubaneswar to Jatani via Sundarapada, Master Canteen to Chandaka via Khandagiri and Lumbini Vihar to Kalpana via Rasulgarh.

However, the officers said the government had not yet provided the infrastructure to the operators. The mayor said the process was on. “It will be handed over to the operator very soon,” he said.