PONDA: After braving the rains during the past monsoon, commuters are now forced to wait for their buses with the heat of the sun beating down on them, due to the lack of shelter at Ponda’s KTC Bus Stand.
The repair work of the shelter at the terminus began over four months ago, said passengers, but is progressing very slowly. The government has only managed to erect a skeletal framework of the bus bays in the past four months. “At night the bus stand remains in darkness as the street lights here are not functioning. This causes great hardship to passengers who arrive from other States, as they do not know their way around. To make things worse, the road outside the bus stand is riddled with potholes, posing a risk to the motorcycle pilots who operate here,” said social worker Viraj Sapre.
It may be recalled that the government had declared the shelter dangerous and had barricaded it from all sides. The KTC Bus Stand authorities had constructed a temporary shed for passengers but it is too small, and only a few people can shelter under it.
