The opening of the Infosys office has pushed the southeast end of New Town into prominence. A bus route connecting Hatishala to Kolkata station was launched on Saturday. Transport minister Snehashish Chakraborty came over to inaugurate it.

“The route has a sanctioned strength of 24 buses. The chassis of eight buses are in the factory, with the outer shell getting manufactured, and they are expected within a week. We are starting with 12 buses. The route will also have four CNG buses later,” said route secretary Palan Pramanik, who also owns buses on routes KB 16 and 260.

Tito Saha, the general secretary of City Suburban Bus Service, a body of bus owners, pointed out that there was a big demand locally for a connection to RG Kar Hospital as a lot of people travel that way. “This bus will also connect the area with two stations — Kolkata and Bidhannagar Road,” he said.

Transport minister Snehasish Chakraborty addresses the gathering at Hatishala on Saturday as (from left) Tito Saha, Showkat Molla and Abhishek Chakraborty of Tata Motors look on.

Shakti Mondol, the octogenarian district Trinamul Congress trade union president, pointed out that availability of public transport was connected to the question of security at night, both for IT sector employees and for passengers embarking at stations. “It is expensive to hail a taxi from the station to reach here,” he remarked, adding that another bus route would be launched the day after from the Kolkata Leather Complex, further boosting the area’s connectivity.

The trade union leader also sounded a cautionary note. “The route will become unviable if the buses do not get enough passengers. Of course, totos and autorickshaws will also ply but buses will be hit if they ply along the main road. So they have to operate within government rules,” he said.

The transport minister spoke of the change that had come over the area. “Five years ago, this place looked a lot different. Now there are wide roads and streetlights. We are preparing the transport infrastructure accordingly,” he said, adding that the department was considering another demand of a route from the local BDO office. “Buses would be introduced as and when roads are built.”

The outer bounds of New Town on the southeast side. So long K1 was the only route that connected the area to Kolkata station

Canning East MLA Saokat Molla pointed out that anti-social activities in Bhangore had stopped here after Calcutta Police took over a year ago. “The chief minister is now thinking of bringing Bhangore under the Newtown Kolkata Development Authority,” he said.

Also present was Tata Motors deputy general manager Abhishek Roychowdhury. “Buses are the lifeline of a city. As a company engaged in bus manufacturing for 75 years, we design buses according to the route specifications. There are 250-300 parts that are required to put a bus together. We study the load pattern and the length of the route to offer a model that would give optimum performance,” he said.

The buses are being kept at Hatishala crossing on the other side of an arch welcoming visitors to New Town, further ahead of the Infosys office. “So far, we had buses on the K-1 route starting from here connecting the same points that the new KB 24 would be plying along. The original terminus of K-1 is Karigari Bhavan. But they had extended their route to serve us. Let us see what happens now with both routes being the same,” said Kartik Dey, a local resident who attended the launch.

The local populace is upbeat about the area gaining in relevance. “ITC Green Centre is further up. Wipro is coming up next to Infosys. Our area is the next Sector V. So passenger load is bound to increase in future,” Dey said.

Surajit Haldar of K-1 route admitted shifting from Karigari Bhavan further up, to Hatishala since 2018. “But that is not illegal. We can always travel four to five kilometres extra. Ours is an old route, over 15 years old. Some of our buses have got scrapped after crossing the 15-year-old deadline and five new buses have joined the fleet as replacement. Passengers look for us at Kolkata station on getting off the train,” he told The Telegraph Salt Lake, turning to the bus conductors on his route who are worried about losing passengers now.

K-1, which is under the State Transport Authority, has 23 buses. KB-24 is under the Regional Transport Authority, Calcutta. “There is no coordination between the two,” a bus conductor grumbled.