GUWAHATI: Middle class and lower-middle-class people living on either side of the Mother Teresa Road, commonly called as VIP Road, have to pay through their noses for daily travel for various purposes.
The Mother Teresa Road that runs from Sixth Mile to Zoo Tiniali via Narengi and Gitanagar has a large number of thickly populated areas. Moreover, this road has a number of important installations like private hospitals, schools and colleges, government and private offices, banks etc. Despite being thickly populated, no city buses ply over the road for reasons best known to the State Transport Department. In the absence of city buses on the road, the commuters have to travel by e-rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, diesel taxis, cabbies of Uber and Ola etc at higher fares. Apart from higher fares, commuters like school and college goers, office goers and others have to face a harrowing time every day for the communication bottlenecks as the plying of the available modes of transportation is very irregular.
In 1999 city buses were made to ply on the VIP Road. The however, the service stopped after plying for a few days. Nobody knows as to why the city bus service was stopped.
Again on February 21 this year, the State Transport Department increased the routes for plying of city buses from the existing 21 to 37, and the VIP Road was one among the newly included routes for plying of city buses. Strangely enough, that step was rolled back for no rhymes or reasons.
After that two ASTC buses were made to ply on the road from Six Mile to Adabari via Madhgaria, Gita Nagar and Zoo Tiniali. However, this service is very irregular. Office goers and students who are supposed to avail this service cannot rely on this bus service due to its irregularity.
The VIP Road snkaes through areas like Sachal, Barbari, Bortilla, Pathaquarry, Narengi, Gita Nagar, Hatigarh, No 2 Madgharia, Narikolbari, Milanpur, Haripur, Siva Nagar, Omoya, Baikuntha Nagar, Ahmed Nagar, Jonaki Nagar, Santi Nagar, Lakhi Mandir, etc.
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