Tarun Karthick
Campbell Bay, 26 April 2021
Passengers from Joginder Nagar Village of Campbell Bay, Great Nicobar Island stopped a local bus which was returning back from a trip to their village to Campbell Bay, because several passengers were not allowed to board the bus due to the restrictions put on by the SOP released by transport department. The transport department recently introduced the Standard Operating Procedure, wherein the bus operators have been strictly ordered to only allow passengers upto 50% of their seating capacity.
This SOP was creating a lot of issues in rural areas of Great Nicobar, as the residents are mostly dependent on the public transport to reach Campbell Bay and other places. It was seen that many passengers were left stranded in different places throughout the bus route this morning, because the bus had already taken the maximum number of passengers allowed as per SOP.
These stranded passengers were continuously calling the Ex-PRIs for resolution of their problem. Some passengers who were not allowed to board the bus while it was returning to Campbell Bay from Joginder Nagar stopped it and demanded that all passengers who are waiting should be taken.
The bus was kept waiting there for some hours until the In-Charge STS Unit came along on another bus to take the other stranded passengers.
Sandeep Kalyan, Ex-PRI member of Laxmi Nagar, Gram Panchayat also reached the area and along with the local leaders of the area P.S Vinod spoke to the In-Charge STS Unit to resolve the issue permanently.
It was decided that the SOP should be followed in letter and spirit, hence to facilitate the passengers more number of sorties of bus should be introduced on all routes. The In-Charge STS informed the leaders that he will draw up a schedule and according to the demand introduce more number of busses on the respective routes.
The bus was let to go after the Ex-PRI, local leaders, police personnels and In-Charge STS unit resolved the issue.
Insp. Aditya Narayan, SHO, PS Campbell Bay was also present at the site and controlled the situation.
This is act of stupidity the issue a SOP with restrictions without providing a solution. Already there very less no of busses through out the day. They Can do 2 things increase in frequency and 2 buses at a time instead of 2.