Bhubaneswar: In view of the threat posed by novel coronavirus, Capital Regional Urban Transport (CRUT) appealed to its commuters to travel in Mo Bus only when necessary.
CRUT’s Mo Bus, the city’s only public transport, is reported to carry more than 1 lakh passengers on a daily basis. Although closure of schools, colleges, shopping malls and offices saw a fall in the number of commuters, Mo Bus was recently found to be overloading few of its buses and was guilty of not following the procedure.
“CRUT is equally concerned about the health and safety of the passengers as well as the staff. In larger public interest we are asking people not to travel unless it is necessary and maintain social distancing. But on the other hand for the people who cannot avoid travelling, we are taking utmost care to keep the buses thoroughly clean and hygienic,” said Arun Bothra, Managing Director, CRUT.
Stating that the management is focusing on complete hygiene, Bothra further added that the frequency of cleaning buses has been increased. “It is being done on a daily basis as per standard procedure in the interest of passengers and staff deployed in the buses,” he said.
Responding to the overcrowding, CRUT mentioned that it has instructed its crew members to request the passengers not to commute in the buses where all the seats are already occupied.
Moreover, ever since the first positive case of coronavirus in Odisha, there has been a sharp decline in passengers of buses. Sources at CRUT said that the decline in ridership is across all routes operating in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Khurda. There was a significant drop in the footfall, March 17, when 75,766 people travelled in the city’s only public transport.
“We are fine with this decline. It may still go down further. Safety of people is much more important than our ridership and revenue,” Bothra said.