Unlike past years when the buses of the Uttarakhand Transport Corporation (UTC) used to get crowded by the inter-district and interstate passengers ahead of the Diwali festival, the number of passengers boarding roadways buses this time is quite low.
According to the general manager (operations) of the corporation, Deepak Jain, there is no major load of passengers this festive season due to Covid-19 as many people are still avoiding travelling and public transport. He said that the footfall is normal in the buses as it was before the beginning of the festive season but there is no considerable change in the number of passengers due to the approaching festivals.
On the question of how many roadways buses of UTC are operating daily, Jain stated that a total of 700 buses are running under UTC on a daily basis including 600 buses of the corporation and 100 contracted buses. Jain further added that the corporation has commenced the services of all kinds of buses including Volvo bus, AC/non AC and normal. According to the officials, almost all the inter-district and interstate roadways buses have been resumed here. They informed that there are about 50 per cent passengers boarding the ordinary buses daily while only a handful of passengers are boarding the other types of buses.
They added that there are hardly one or two online bookings of the buses and almost all the Volvo buses are running with negligible passengers due to which the operation of many buses has been cancelled too. They stated that there might be a hike in the number of passengers in the coming days before Diwali but currently, the corporation is running most of the roadways buses while bearing a considerable loss.
Monday, 09 November 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
