Team Herald
PONDA: Frustrated with the incomplete renovation of the shelter structure at Ponda’s KTC Bus Stand, the residents of the town have urged Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Transport Minister Mauvin Godhino to intervene immediately and work out a solution to the long-pending project.
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The government had declared the shed unsafe in early 2022, and decided to renovate it at a cost of Rs one crore, but the work has been abandoned for the past four months, allege locals.
Commuters who depend on the KTC bus service to get to work and back on a daily basis have alleged that the contractor has abandoned the renovation of the shed halfway, and that they have not seen a single worker at the site for the past four months. The work on the shed is long overdue, and passengers waiting for their buses are subjected to the elements as the temporary shelter can only accommodate a few people.
Former Sarpanch of Bandora Rajesh Naik on Friday sought the Chief Minister’s intervention to complete the project, and also to repair the gnarly roads within the KTC bus stand. “Commuters are unhappy as this renovation work on the Bus Stand shed has been halted for a long time, and nobody is willing to give them any answers, or a time-frame. This has also hit the business of vendors within the premises, as some buses pick up and drop their passengers on the main road outside the bus stand and continue to their destinations without entering the bus stand due to the pathetic condition of the road and the shed,” said Naik.
Meanwhile, the entry and exit roads beside the bus bays have been in a dilapidated state for the past few years, due to the collapse of the drainage system.
