COIMBATORE: Transport minister SS Sivasankar recently announced in the Assembly that all government buses would be fitted with automatic doors to prevent footboard travel, especially by students.
But, a reality check by TNIE revealed that a majority of doors fitted in buses in Coimbatore are not in working condition, due to lack of maintenance. TNSTC employees, on the condition of anonymity, said the corporation is facing shortage of spares and technical work force and to keep the fleet in good shape.
"Every year, several lives are lost due to foot board travel. To preventing such incidents, we sought doors in all buses, and even approached the Madras High Court," said M Anburaj, general secretary of Nethaji Transport Workers Welfare Federation.
"Responding to our petition in 2014, the Madras High court directed TNSTC to fit doors. After that the corporation fitted doors in all new buses. But doors in town service went out of order within a year. We keep doors open by placing stones and tying them with ropes," he added.
Further, he suggested that instead of using hydraulic doors, ordinary buses could be fitted in manually operated doors.
Technical staff in TNSTC said, "Nearly 65% of the fleet is past its lifetime of ten years, but are still in use. There is large number of vacancies in technical staff in every depot and less than 30 persons are there instead of 75. This results in buses not getting maintenance checks regularly."
A senior official from TNSTC, Coimbatore, said, "The corporation has planned to fix manual door in ordinary buses. Repairing work would be taken up in buses that already have hydraulic doors."