The state transport department has submitted to Calcutta High Court a list of places where a terminal point for long-distance buses can be set up if the Esplanade terminus was closed down.
The places on the list are Santragachhi bus terminus, Foreshore Road in Howrah, a piece of land belonging to the Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners (HRBC) under Vidyasagar Setu, Duke Road in Howrah’s Shibpur, and plots adjacent to bus depots of the North Bengal State Transport Corporation (NBSTC), South Bengal State Transport Corporation (SBSTC) in Kolkata and the Howrah bus depot.
The managing director of West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC) submitted the report before a bench of Justice Debangshu Basak and Justice Shampa Sarkar.
The bench, headed by Justice Basak, fixed the matter for hearing on October 6.
In the affidavit, the managing director of the transport corporation mentioned the possible sites for setting up the long-distance bus terminus were explored during joint visits by the HRBC, WBTC, NBSTC, SBSTC, army and Kolkata police teams.
The state had earlier informed the court that adequate land was not available to shift the Esplanade bus terminus.
The high court is hearing a petition by environment activist Subhas Datta alleging that even after the Supreme Court of the country had ordered for shifting of the bus terminus from Esplanade in December 2007, the state government has yet to execute the order.
The high court had in September 2007 passed the order to shift the Esplanade bus terminus from its current location.
In the latest petition, Datta mentioned that the high court’s order that the bus terminus be shifted to a place beyond 3km from the Victoria Memorial was based on a report by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute.
Around 2,000 buses on different routes — both inter-city and intra-city — now use the terminus around Shahid Minar in Esplanade.