BENGALURU: The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has been receiving several requests for feeder buses. The BMTC gets around 30 requests per month especially to cover distances between residential areas to a Metro, bus or railway station. As of now, the corporation has 155 feeder buses to metro stations with a frequency of 15 to 30 minutes according to their data.
On Monday, the corporation also received a letter of recommendation from Bengaluru Central MP P C Mohan to bring in two additional mini-buses for Vasanth Nagar, Mount Carmel College and areas around the Metro station and Vidhana Soudha. After receiving the letter, BMTC Managing Director C Shikha told The New Indian Express, “A survey is being conducted after requests from the residents. We will check the feasibility and see if it is possible to bring in additional buses.”
Residents had earlier used the service in 2017 for three months. However, due to less ridership, the service was scrapped. “Back then, it was a big bus and would run between 8am to 5pm. The bus would run every 35 minutes to one hour. Who would want to wait that long when the Metro itself runs every five minutes,” said Rajkumar Dugar, convener of Citizens 4 Citizens — a citizen group and a resident of Vasanth Nagar.
Following this, MC College had also requested BMTC to restart the service as it would make commute convenient for students.
“Right now, students are travelling in their own vehicles and since there is no parking within the campus, it creates a traffic jam on the road,” Rajkumar told The New Indian Express.BMTC responded saying that the service was not feasible last year. In addition to this, several other areas have requested for the same such as Ramamurthy Nagar Bridge and Kasturi Nagar, to Byappanahalli Metro station. A BMTC spokesperson has said that buses can only be made available if there is a demand for the same.