Cuttack, Sept. 24: The government has allotted land for the proposed modern Cuttack bus terminus at Gopalpur.
Official sources said 42.64 acres has been allocated in favour of the state transport and commerce department for shifting the Odisha State Road Transport Corporation's bus station from Badambadi to Gopalpur.
More than a thousand buses move in and out of the Badambadi bus station every day. The transport and commerce department had planned the new bus terminus more than a year ago to provide adequate parking space for the vehicles and proper facilities to passengers to reduce traffic congestion on the city's Link Road that connects Badambadi bus station with NH-5 at Madhupatana.
The department had identified an unutilised government plot at Gopalpur. The land is easily accessible from multiple points on the NH-5, which is five kilometres from Badambadi. However, the project made no headway owing to delay in land allocation in favour of transport and commerce department.
"Now that the process of allocation of 42.64 acres at Gopalpur has been done, things will move fast and the project will take shape," regional transport officer, Cuttack, Dipti Ranjan Patra told The Telegraph today.
Patra has been authorised to take possession of the demarcated land from the Cuttack Sadar tehsildar.
An official of the Odisha State Road Transport Corporation said there were numerous problems at the Badambati bus station.
"Due to lack of parking space, the buses are parked along the Link Road and this clogs traffic movement," said advocate Jaydip Pal, member of the traffic management committee for Cuttack city.
The committee, which is headed by the police commissioner, had taken up the increasing problem of illegal parking of buses along the Link Road following a direction by the high court.
Assistant commissioner of police (traffic), Cuttack, P.K. Dalai said: "Several stretches of the Link Road had been declared no-parking zones. But the problem of illegal parking persists because of the shortage of parking space."
