SAMBALPUR: City bus service in Sambalpur will resume on all the routes from January 1. The service was stopped due to Covid-19 outbreak on March 20. When it resumed on October 1, city buses ran on all 12 routes. However after five days, the operator stopped plying the buses on nine routes due to poor response from commuters.
As many as 32 buses ply on 12 inter and intra-city routes under the service. Currently, the city buses are plying on three routes, Sambalpur-Jharsuguda-Sambalpur, Sambalpur-Bargarh-Sambalpur and Sambalpur-Laida-Sambalpur.
Chief executive officer of Paschim Odisha Paribahan Company (POPCO) Bipin Bhatia said though the bus service was resumed, people did not prefer public transport due to the Covid-19 situation. As a result, POPCO incurred huge losses.
However, the situation has changed now and people have started using public transport again. “Keeping an eye on the current situation, we have decided to restart plying of buses on all 12 routes from the new year,” he said.
The city bus service was launched in Sambalpur in 2014 on public private partnership (PPP) mode. Private operator POPCO partnered with the Western Odisha Urban Transport Services Limited (WOUTSL), the apex body of the city bus service in Sambalpur, to run and manage the city bus service. The city buses provide services to the periphery of Sambalpur city besides neighbouring Bargarh and Jharsuguda towns.
More than 7,000 commuters were travelling in the city buses daily before the service was stopped due to Covid.