We want to draw the attention towards the level of “efficiency” of the authorities concerned in arranging construction of a new Bus Stand at Samba town which was built for the facilities of passengers as also for orderly parking, arriving and departing of inter-state and local buses to and fro different routes.So far so good, for reasons not known as to why incompetence of the concerned authorities kept haunting it to the extent of rendering it non-functional and hence abandoned. The fallout of this policy of making a thing for a specific purpose and then leaving it unutilized and inert has accentuated the traffic mess and congestion in the busy town and has also been one of the chief reasons of spurt in road accidents . However, the only psychological “relief” from the amount spent on its making could be derived and ‘felt’ by seeing the Bus Stand area put to ‘alternate use’ for playing cricket by the children of the area.
Having been built in the year 2008 at a cost of Rs.0.54 crore , the present value of the building could be more than double as much, is proving as a sheer wastage of the public assets as they are not utilized for the designated purposes. Local residents too are questioning the wisdom of the authorities in not shifting the existing bus stand to the new one just 500 meters away from the main Samba market and just squandering public funds on its building. Halting at Samba by almost all buses , whether intra state or interstate , is almost mandatorily a practice , added to it – overcrowding of vendors and hawkers and erratic parking habits make the movement of smooth traffic very difficult and precisely for these reasons , the Bus Stand must have been built. After a token use , it was left dormant and fallow.
Was it on trial basis alone that initially some portion of the passenger bus fleet was shifted to this place for boarding and de-boarding of passengers but the practice was soon stopped never to start again. The reasons are stated to be the mismatch between the ‘taste and convenience’ of the bus operators and the location of the bus stand. If credence is given to this aspect by the authorities concerned, then the matter needs to be investigated as to how in the absence of taking into account all factors and provisions suitable for an ideal but busy bus stand were not taken on board and considered before execution of the project . Alternately , if the ‘taste’ of the bus operators is not related to any of the aspects connected with the bus stand, the Traffic and Transport authorities should act accordingly and have the bus stand fully operated.
If there are some technical difficulties felt in respect of negotiating some curves by the bus operators while coming from Kathua side on account of expansion and widening of the National Highway into four lane compartmentalisation, the same should be looked into at the earliest and the existing bus stand shifted to the ‘haunted and abandoned’ one at the earliest. Shifting of hawkers and vendors too should follow to relieve the busy route of unnecessary traffic congestion and mess.
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