BANGALORE: Owning a fleet of over 6,000 buses plying on the busy stretches of the IT city, Bangalore Metro Transport Corporation (BMTC) is all set to mutate the service to make it more commuter-friendly. In its drive to mould the service into a more assistable and accessible aid to the common man, BMTC will soon scrap its 11-year-old project, Janapriyavahini, the one-man buses with drivers playing a dual role — of a driver and conductor.According to reliable sources, as many as 180 Janapriyavahini buses running everyday will soon have another man in khaki, sharing the burden with the man engineering the vehicle. Also known as Pushpak, these coffee-coloured, single gated buses hit the roads in the year 2000 with a number of other modifications apart from having a common entry and exit point. The driver issues the ticket in these buses and the commuters are supposed to put the money in the cash box, the concept that never fared well. On the contrary, the drivers playing the dual role always fell on the receiving end, whether in the case of an accident or paying the penalty for a commuter who did not bother to buy the ticket. Being held responsible for the traffic jam during the peak hours was another allegation faced by the drivers. Moreover, other rules like not allowing more than the seating capacity of commuters also did not fall in place.“This is surely a welcome change. Driving such buses is a cumbersome task as it also involves keeping an eye over people who are boarding the buses. Moreover, the public does not act responsible and sneaks in without buying tickets. The situation becomes deplorable for drivers if such people are caught during those occasional checks and the drivers end up paying the penalty for no fault of his,” said Shanmuga, a BMTC driver.Commuters also face the brunt and have always been demanding the concept to be scrapped. “The whole idea never suited the commuters. Traffic chaos, inconvenience to female passengers and an open invitation to road rage are all associated with such buses. I wonder how these drivers manage to collect the fare and at the same time drive. If they do not do so, they end up creating a traffic jam causing inconvenience to others on the road,” said Rohit Vijay Singh, student, AMIT College.Looking at the utter failure of the service, BMTC has pulled its socks up and has decided to do away with the concept of conductor-cum-driver. Very soon, Pushpak buses will also have a conductor, making the journey easy for both the driver and the commuters. “Lately, we have been receiving a number of complaints regarding the Pushpak buses. Commuters are not very happy, as the whole procedure eats a lot of time. We will soon have all the Pushpak buses equipped with conductors,” said M P Prabhudas, Chief Traffic Manager, Operations.Prabhudas informed that within a period of two months BMTC will start a recruitment process in a phased manner to gear these buses with conductors. “We are planning to recruit 3,000 people for the posts of drivers and conductors to meet the requirement and to scrap the concept of driver-cum-conductor,” said Prabhudas.
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