Passengers on private town buses in the steel city can clean their hand using sanitizers from Monday.

Shikshit Berozgar Mini Bus Association, which coordinates the nearly 120 town buses running on 11 specified routes carrying over 50,000 passengers daily, has decided to keep alcohol-based hand sanitizers, which kill the novel coronavirus, on the vehicles from Monday.

“All the bus operators have been asked to procure alcohol-based hand sanitizers and place them in the emergency boxes near the bus driver. The ticket collector has been asked to give the sanitizer to anyone who wants it. The collectors have been directed to persuade anybody having runny nose or cough to specially clean their hands using the sanitizer,” said Dilip Jha, secretary of the bus association.

“We do not want to create panic about the situation but want people to be aware of their personal hygiene and specially with the novel coronavirus scare we do not want to take any risk either. We know that it is a temporary phase and the virus would not survive once the temperature gets warmer,” added Jha.

However, there is no evidence yet of the virus being killed by warm temperatures.

Most students prefer to opt for private buses which are a cheaper mode of conveyance as compared to auto-rickshaws.

The bus association members also started an awareness drive at the private bus terminus in Sakchi near Jama Masjid. “We were approached by a social organisation, Mitra Healthy Humanity, on pasting and distributing pamphlets on novel coronavirus and we readily agreed. Most of the buses have pasted the pamphlets inside the buses so that people know the precautions to be adopted,” informed Jha.

The pamphlets inform about proper hand washing techniques and soaps and dos and don’ts to fight the novel coronavirus.

The Jamshedpur Bus Owners Association (JBOA), the outfit of long-distance bus operators, has also decided to keep hand sanitizers and Dettol inside the buses.

“There is a shortage of hand sanitizers and those buses which could not find hand sanitizers for keeping in the buses have decided to keep Dettol (antiseptic) and cotton. This is just a precautionary step on our part” said Uday Sharma, JBOA president.