With more relaxations announced in lockdown norms, the state transport department has added buses on nine more routes to the six that were so far plying in the city for movement of personnel on emergency duty.
Among the six, there was S12 on the Howrah station to New Town route, operating hourly from 8am to 8pm. From Tuesday, three other routes started service in the area — Karunamoyee-Jadavpur, Ultadanga-Salt Lake and Tollygunge-New Town.
“We have brought the timing forward. The services will now be available from 7am to 7pm. The buses will run hourly as before. Each route will have four to six buses running. We may increase the number if demand is more,” said a senior official of the state transport corporation.
The Ultadanga-Salt Lake route was resumed keeping Sector V workers in mind, he said. Each bus will carry 20 to 25 passengers at a time, maintaining social distancing norms. “But passengers are agitating in places, blocking roads to force us to carry more. We are having to take help of police in such situations,” he added.
The department, he said, will take stock of feedback and increase the number of buses if the demand is very high on a route.
In the first two days of operation, S9 on the Salt Lake-Jadavpur route got about 13 passengers at the most at a time. “We picked up eight female staffers from AMRI Salt Lake today. They take our 6pm bus daily to go home,” said Provat Chandra Maity, the driver of the last bus heading out from the Karunamoyee depot on Wednesday.
Both the conductor and the driver have bought sanitisers. “Sankar Dasgupta, our conductor, is putting sanitisers in each passenger’s hands before they board. Today someone without a mask hailed our bus. Though he claimed his mask was in his pocket, I did not stop to pick him up. We have to be very careful,” he added.
Dasgupta has carried staff to and from a Phulbagan hospital before S9 resumed service. “On the first day, I wore a raincoat along with shoe cover and cap provided by the department. But it got torn.”
A ride is taking 45 minutes. “We are waiting for 15 minutes at the depot before starting on the return journey,” he said.
