BENGALURU: The Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) officials had to face the ire of students on Saturday as thousands of them were forced to stand in long queues at the Kempegowda Bus Station despite being promised delivery of bus passes at their doorsteps by the transport utility. While earlier the BMTC had promised a completely online process, it has now asked thousands of students to apply in person at the pass counters.
Students were also angry that only eight counters were operational at the bus stand. According to the students, the BMTC had reneged on its earlier promise of having the passes delivered to their doorstep. Several students said they had tried the online application process, which was unsuccessful for them, leading to the queues on Saturday.
“In the beginning, BMTC said students just have to apply online and the passes will be delivered to our address and we can pay during the delivery. Now, it has asked us to get it done in person and only eight counters are opened because of which we had to stand in a queue for the entire day,” said a student of Bangalore University.
Others blamed the BMTC for setting up only eight counters to deal with the huge rush. “Colleges have re-opened since three months and we are struggling to get the passes since then. Today we have been standing here since 5 am to get the pass as we have to pay every day to travel,” said Bhoomika, a PUC student.
BMTC cites incomplete application forms
A top BMTC official said more than 60,000 applications for bus passes submitted online by college students had numerous problems, so the passes couldn’t be delivered to them by the end of September as assured. Those with problems were asked to collect them in person from counters in Kempegowda Bus Station or special counters in Shantinagar Bus Station.
Of the nearly 3 lakh bus passes meant for school and college students, 1.5 lakh have been despatched, said K R Viswanath, Chief Traffic Manager (Operations), BMTC. “We did not have any problems in them as schools have a unique student ID for each pass and this made our job easy,” he said. “However, in case of forms submitted by students up to the PUC level, many forms were not complete or discrepancies were found.
The email IDs were missing, the photographs did not tally with the college ID, the termination and destination bus stops were missing and so on. The problems in forms are plenty and so passes could not be issued for such forms numbering between 60,000 and 70,000,” the manager said, adding that the process of issuing bus passes to all students will be completed within a fortnight.
BMTC extends deadline
On Saturday, the BMTC extended the date for travelling without passes for school and college students up to October 31. The deadline for travel on buses using alternative documents was supposed to expire on Sunday (September 30). An official release today said primary, high school and PUC students can continue to travel to schools using the acknowledgement given for applying for bus passes along with school or college fee receipt and ID card. In the case of students from Class I to 12 (CBSE, ICSE), degree college, professional college, diploma, postgraduate and other institutions, the school/college ID along with latest fee receipt needs to be carried.