BENGALURU: Under fire for frequent breakdown of its old buses in the city that cause traffic congestion, Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation on Wednesday issued a statement on its Facebook page regretting the inconvenience caused to passengers.
“Our Volvo fleet is ageing and public bus procurement -- given the scale that a megacity such as Bengaluru demands -- takes time. In the meantime, we perform preventive maintenance on all our buses, taking on mechanical challenges that come with age,” BMTC said on the Facebook post.
It added, “The number of breakdown events have steadily come down over the years though it may not appear so in the face of the recent complaints. With our older buses getting replaced soon enough, breakdowns are only likely to be rarer, we assure you.
“Buses hold key to our daily lives and social media has provided us with an opportunity to receive inputs like never before. We’ve fixed jammed windows, dispatched tow vehicles in a flash, worked on understanding demand for new routes in the few months we’ve been on Facebook and Twitter. We will only do more and better with your valuable inputs. Thank you!”, it added.
The BMTC has not added a single bus since December 2014 to its fleet because of various reasons. Many netizens reacted to the BMTC’s clarification over the frequent bus breakdowns on Facebook.
One of them was Nagaraj Hegde. His Facebook post read: “Renew your contract for Volvo bus maintenance with Volvo Ltd itself. BMTC has done a poor job on maintaining the Volvo by itself with their own mechanics.” Clement Jayakumar’s Facebook post read, “Depute a tow truck in ORR Bellandur. Every day there are 2-3 buses that have broken down from Silk Board to Marathahalli.”