Bhawanipatna: Four towns of Kalahandi district will shortly get bus service.

The district administration has finalised to start town bus services to Junagarh, Dharmagarh and Kesinga from Bhawanipatna.

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by district collector Anjan Kumar Manik and attended by senior officials of urban bodies and transport departments such as the additional district magistrate, project director of the DRDA, Bhawanipatna sub-collector, executive officers of Dharamgarh, Junagarh and Kesinga notified area councils, Bhawanipatna municipality chairperson and the regional transport officer. The meeting resolved that initially four buses would ply, out of which two would be between Bhawanipatna to Junagarh and Dharamgarh and the rest two between Bhawanipatna and Kesinga. It has also been decided to float a trust called Kalahandi Urban Transport Services Authority Trust.

Kesinga resident Suvendra Sa said the demand of town bus services was a long-standing one of the people of Kalahandi.

"This will definitely help communication in the district, and people will get better transport facility between towns of Kalahandi," Sa said. He further said that as there was hardly any government transport services existing, the private buses became crowded causing inconvenience to the commuters.

"Introduction of town bus services will ease out such rush in buses. The road condition in the district has improved a lot now. Thus it is high time to start the town bus service," Sa said.

Kalahandi regional transport officer Dinabandhu Sundhi said that in the first phase, four buses would start plying to and fro in the towns. "We have decided to introduce four buses for services in these four towns in the first phase. Two buses will be of 32-seat capacity, while the other two will have 42 seats each. Though we have not decided on any date for this, but it is going to start shortly," he said.