Mumbai, February 24: A day after Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT) administration decided to discontinue its bus services to Uran, the transport undertaking on Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has decided to not to re-start the services fearing security of their staff. NMMT has suspended the services of route numbers 30 and 31 after the locals manhandled a bus driver. Earlier, the services on bus number 34 were suspended after the NMMT staff protested and complained of assault by locals on a bus driver who was involved in a fatal accident.
"We will not be starting the services to Uran in the near future since the security of out staff is of prime importance to us. We agree that our driver was involved in the accident and we sympathise with the victim. But, it doesn’t mean that the locals should manhandle other drivers and conductors for no fault of theirs. We thought about this decision (suspending the services) 10 times before arriving at a conclusion,” NMMT General Manager Yogesh Kaduskar said.
Services Between Juinagar And Uran Were Incurring Losses:
“Anyways, the route was incurring losses to NMMT and still we were continuing with the services considering that it will be beneficial for the people. If they are going to behave with us like this and continue to threaten our staff, then why should we ply the buses on loss-making route,” Kaduskar said and added that the service between Juinagar and Uran is one of the longest in kilometres for NMMT and was incurring a loss of Rs 30 Crore annually.
“The local MLA tried to intervene in the issue, but his efforts also went in vain. We are really disappointed with the way the police and people reacted to the incident. Considering this, we were left with no choice but to suspend the service indefinitely,” the official added.
Services Of Bus No. 34 Suspended:
The bus number 34 which was plying between Juinagar and Koproli (Uran), dashed a villager at Khopte on February 9 killing him on the spot and injuring another pedestrian. Angered over this, the locals thrashed the driver forcing the NMMC staff to protest against this and being reluctant to continue the service.
Meanwhile, the transport administration will be commencing its service from Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) next week. “As announced earlier, we will be commencing the service by next week. We are ready with the plan and completing the required procedures. As far as change in fare is concerned due to heavy toil on MTHL, also called as Atal Setu, we have submitted a proposal with the authorities. Once we get a green signal, we will start the services,” Kaduskar added.
