Recently a travel agency representative from Romania made interesting comments with her candid remarks on the situation of roads and buses in Goa. Romania is not as highly developed country as compared to some countries in Western Europe, but she did not hesitate to speak up her mind to her hosts in Goa with her candid comments on our “bouncy roads and bad buses”. We should keep in mind the comforts of our tourists who give us bread and butter for a living. Her comments, however, unpleasant to us, should not surprise us since even the locals are not happy with the state of our roads and public transport, but do not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Public may go on complaining and grumbling, but the authorities behave like the proverbial three wise monkeys. This is the time our Transport Minister has to introspect as to what has gone wrong with our roads and our public transport system. We are inviting tourists from all over the world, but do not have a world class infrastructure in place. Forget about the luxury of air-conditioned coaches, senior citizens and even middle-aged commuters especially the women and children, find it difficult to hop-on and hop-off, given the condition of our old rickety buses, some of which should have been consigned to the scrap yard.
State-owned Kadamba Transport Corporation was planning to introduce low floor coaches, but it is likely that the plan did not take off or if at all, they are introduced, these might be allocated to a few select routes for VIP travelers. These low floor coaches would have helped senior citizens and handicapped commuters and made their travel more safe and comfortable.
It is high time that our bus drivers and conductors be given a crash course in good manners when dealing with commuters. The senior citizens and handicapped must be given a helping hand by the conductors when boarding and alighting from the buses, but on the contrary, the conductors force the young and elderly to board and alight in uncalled for hurry, yelling “vegim chodd, vegim denv”. This is disgusting. What better time to do this than the coming Exposition of the relic of our Goencho Saib, St Francis Xavier.
