BENGALURU:Vasanth Nagar is a busy commercial area near the central business district that sees a lot of people especially with a number of offices and academic institutions located here. When the Cubbon Park and Vidhan Soudha Metro station opened nearby, residents and office goers alike rejoiced.
A feeder service was started in the area. However, a few months after it started, the feeder service was abruptly stopped. “It was on our request that the metro services were started in the first place. We spent around Rs 10,000 on brochures to make the people aware about the service. However, over time, there were a number of problems,” says Rajkumar Dugar, general secretary, RWA, Vasanthnagar.
While the metro timings are from 6am to 10 pm, the feeder service started at 8 am and ended at 5pm, the routes were also changed so that there were only few passengers who could actually use it. “Vasanth Nnagar is an area with a high density of population where there are a number of institutions such as Mount Carmel College, Fortis Hospitals, Vikram Hospital and several offices that houses thousands of employees each,” says Rajkumar.
It was as if the BMTC made the feeder service fail says Rajkumar made it fail, adds Rajkumar.
“They should match the feeder service with the usage of people. It was as if they were running it for namesake, We pointed these things to the BMTC authorities, but they gradually toned down the services by reducing it to only a few hours per day finally stopping it altogether,” adds Rajkumar.
Had the BMTC done it right, the feeder service could have been a huge success. “We definitely want the service back with changes. While earlier the bus being used was a big one we want a smaller bus now and for it to follow proper routes where there will be many passengers using it,” adds Rajkumar.
U V Vasanth Rao, Chief Public Relations Officer, BMRCL says; “These two stations - Cubbon Park and Vidhan Soudha are stations where people usually go nearby to places like Cubbon Park or the High Court. It is likely that the feeder services was withdrawn because it was not popular.” BMTC’s Chief Traffic Manager (operations), K R Vishwanath says: “I will have to find out why the service was stopped. I will look into the matter.”