The shift of Babughat bus terminus to Santragachhi is fraught with uncertainties, reports Amrita Ghosh

The present terminus at Babughat

If everything goes well, the old bus stand at Babughat will be shifted to a new terminus at Santragachhi on Kona Expressway by the end of November. The new bus terminus, a state transport department project, is being implemented by the Hooghly River Bridge Commission (HRBC). Work is on at a war footing to meet the deadline. The transport department has already missed an earlier deadline of September 30.

Baba Travels operates its Calcutta to Ranchi shuttle service from Babughat

 

“We need another month to complete the project because many things, including electrification and the laying of drainage pipes, are yet to be done. The work is enormous but we have very little time in hand to finish the project,” said an HRBC engineer supervising the project. However, senior officers of the state transport department are sceptical about the shift. They think the bus operators will be loathe to shift their buses to the new terminus.

 

 

Work on at the proposed new bus terminus at Santragachhi. Pictures by Anup Bhattacharya

“The bus terminus is being built at a cost of Rs 13 crore on 2,000 square meters (sq mt) of land. In the terminus, 200 big buses can be accommodated at a time. There is also provision for parking another 50 buses. The new bus terminus will be well connected with Dharmatala by state and private buses for the benefit of the passengers,” said state transport minister Madan Mitra.

He said that the new bus terminus would have a taxi stand, an auto stand, cafeterias, canteens, drinking water, pay and use toilets, passenger waiting hall and other public amenities. The entire bus terminus will be protected by an eight feet high boundary wall and will be adequately illuminated.

Makeshift eateries at the Babughat bus stand operate in unhygienic conditions

In a verdict on September 28, 2007 the Calcutta High Court had asked the state government to remove the bus stand from Babughat and the central bus stand (CBS) from Shahid Minar area as they were polluting the Victoria Memorial environment. The high court delivered the verdict in a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by environmentalist Subhas Dutta. However, the bus operators appealed to the Supreme Court against the verdict but the apex court on September 11, 2011 upheld the order of the Calcutta High Court. Subhas Dutta, in his appeal to the court, had said that nearly 100 interstate and short distance buses that are now operating from the Babughat stand are causing pollution to the Victoria Memorial and surrounding areas. However, senior officers of the state transport department believe the bus operators will appeal to a division bench of the apex court to stall the order.

Hundreds of commuters come to the Babughat bus stand everyday to take buses to Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and other states. However, the bus stand lacks basic public amenities like drinking water, toilets and passenger waiting hall. A small plot adjoining the bus stand is used as an open-air toilet. During monsoon, a large stretch of the bus stand gets flooded. Garbage is dumped everywhere and the roadside eateries and restaurants operate in such unhygienic conditions.

The quality of food available at these eateries is so poor that most passengers prefer to carry their own home-cooked food with them. Though passengers have a number of grievances about the Babughat bus stand, they still want the bus stand to stay at Babughat because they are not sure if they can get enough buses from Dharmatala to reach the new Santragachhi bus terminus.

Commuters have no place to wait at the Babughat bus stand

“I am an employee of the state assembly, and I have been working here for 16 years. I can easily reach my ancestral home at Cuttack by availing a bus from Babughat. Now that they have decided to shift the bus stand to Santragachhi, it will be difficult for me to reach the stand,” said Bhanja Kishore Rout. He said that now he could easily join his duty at the Assembly after reaching the Babughat bus stand in the morning after having started from his home in Cuttack. But if he reaches Santragachhi from Cuttack in the morning, he might not be able to report for duty at the Assembly the same day.

Debasis Mukherjee, an employee of a private firm said that he and a few of his colleagues took back a lot of luggage to their home states in Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. They could easily carry the extra luggage to Babughat without much difficulty. “After the bus stand shifts to Santragachhi, we will have to take a taxi to the new bus terminus to carry the extra luggage,” said Mukherjee.

Bus operators are also not sure whether they will get enough passengers from the Santragachhi bus terminus. Wakil Ahmed, an employee of Baba Travels that operates shuttle buses from Babughat to Ranchi, said that they were confused about shifting their buses to Santragachhi. “If the transport department increases connectivity between Dharmatala and Santragachhi, we will have no problem. But we are not sure if private bus owners will agree to operate between Santragachhi and Dharmatala. In such a situation, we shall not get passengers and our business will suffer,” said Ahmed.

Subhas Dutta, though, is happy with the prospect of Babughat bus stand being shifted to the new bus terminus at Santragachhi. But his worry is about the Kona Expressway which he believes will witness severe traffic jam after the new bus terminus becomes operational. “The Kona Expressway is narrow. If the volume of traffic increases, traffic jam will be a daily affair like that on Jessore Road. So Kona Expressway must be widened before the Babughat bus stand is shifted to Santragachhi,” he said. The encroachment from the Kona Expressway must be removed and if required private land should be acquired for widening the road. “Besides, the connectivity of Santragachhi bus terminus with Dharmatala must be properly improved,” he said.