Bus blues

For a person from Calcutta who is dependent on public transport system for travelling around, a visit to Nagpur or Patna or any other emerging cities could be an eye-opener as far as commuting is concerned. Calcutta, according to a survey by the Union ministry of urban development, has the highest share of public transport among the 30 cities studied this year.

We don’t know how much fortunate we Calcuttans are. An average daily passenger in Calcutta can avail local rickety decades-old bus, short-distance high speed WBSTC bus, Whiteliner AC bus, back-breaking CSTC bus, overcrowded mini-bus, suburban EMU train (covering 100km to north, 107km to west, 130km to southwest, 60km to south, 75km to east), underground Metro, yellow taxi, AC taxi, black-and-yellow smoke-belching autorickshaws and moreover, a dedicated ferry service on the Ganga throughout the day! How many cities in India would offer so much of transport facilities for common masses?

Still we crave for SUVs and Nanos forgetting that average speed of vehicles on Calcutta streets is merely 18kmph. After the launch of a Rs 1-lakh car, one can easily imagine the congested Calcutta we had never seen before. My intention is not at all to contain the growth of the recession-hit automobile manufacturing sector by requesting fellow Calcuttans not to go for personal cars, but to ask them not to hit the streets — which is just 6 per cent of the total area of the city — with such vehicles to make a chock-a-block condition. Does it take less time to drive from Dum Dum to Tollygunge than taking the Metro? Can’t be. We have a good public transport system, which may not be world class but far batter than any other city has in the country.

What prompted me to write this blog has its roots in my last week’s visit to one of the emerging cities in central India. Hardly there was any suburban train service in the city, which though connects Kanyakumari with Kashmir and Gandhinagar with Guwahati. City bus service was though remodelled with introducing new fleet of Starbuses, it cannot better the revenue generated by two- and four-stroke autorickshaws that ply in several thousands to ferry ever-growing number of passengers. One of the senior journalists i met there possesses a four-wheeler and a motorcycle too. Same is the condition with lakhs of people living there. The streets as usual remain highly congested during the morning and evening peak hours with every mode of personal transport clogging even the arterial roads and flyovers. The only solution lies in developing a proper public transport system, at least like Calcutta to start the process.