The widening of Bhuiyandih Main Road is set to eat into the already crammed long-distance bus terminus in Sitaramdera, causing inconvenience to passengers.

Following complaints by passengers, bus owners have approached Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC), which maintains the bus terminus, and the East Singhbhum district administration.

“Yesterday (Thursday), officials of Jusco, which is undertaking the road-widening work, took measurements along bus terminus and informed us that the boundary of the terminus would be pushed back 10m. We understand that broadening the road is important, but the bus terminus, spread across only 1.5 acres, is already crammed. It can’t accommodate all the buses and passengers have to stand outside the terminus to board buses to,” Uday Sharma, president of the Jamshedpur Bus Owners Association (JBOA) — an umbrella body of long-distance bus operators, said.

Sharma said they had registered a complaint with JNAC and East Singhbhum deputy commissioner Ravishankar Shukla.

Passengers are concerned over the impending problem.

“The administration should undertake measures to increase the area of the bus terminus before carrying out the road widening work. It is very difficult for elderly people to board buses inside the terminus due to the crammed space. There’s hardly any space between two buses,” said Pankaj Kumar Sao, a resident of Vidyapati Nagar.

More than 30,000 passengers take around 400 buses daily to various destinations in Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha from Sitaramdera bus terminus.

“At any given point of time, there are around 100 buses at the terminus and we have no option but to park a few of them along the road to avoid congestion. If more space is carved out of the terminus for the road project, it would create a huge problem for both drivers and passengers. We have suggested that the vacant area behind the terminus, which currently has a big drain, be taken for the project,” JBOA patron Upender Sharma said.

According to Jusco sources, spadework for the construction of four-lane road had already commenced on some stretches. “We hope to start widening work along the road near the bus terminus soon this year itself. The total width of the road would be 16m with a 1.2m road divider,” a Jusco official said.

Currently, it is a double-lane road linking Mango with Agrico via Bhuiyandih.

JNAC special officer Krishna Kumar confirmed he had received complaints from bus operators. “We will call a meeting of bus operators, Jusco/Tata Steel and JNAC to sort out the issue,” he said.