PMPML cancels 330 buses every month for repairs
Sakaal Times: This is for all those who expect the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) to bounce back to life with a renewed energy once it adds the much-publicised 500-600 new buses, thanks to JNNURM largesse to its fleet some time in June this year.
The fact is the PMPML, cancels as many as 330 buses a month on an average, for maintenance or following accidents or the mandatory quality check-ups at the road transport offices.
At best, the PMPML manages the show minus 23 per cent of its existing vehicles and perhaps even more considering emergency factors that lead to last moment cancellations like drivers not reporting for work.
Add to it the 220 odd buses that are running way beyond their life expectancy (over 15 years) and which may be retired any time and the new buses appear to be just enough to keep the show going rather than adding any kind of value to the public transport of the twin cities it serves.
“The total strength of buses available with the PMPML as on today is 1,460 of which 210 are off the roads,” said Deepak Pardeshi, giving details of the fleet strength of the public transporter, which has suddenly gained center-stage in all issues being debated in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections from Pune constituency.
If you look at the number of the road buses for the last ten months for the number of buses off the road (not in service), this is the best that the PMPML has ever managed.
For in every single month from August 2008 to January 2009, the PMPML has put aside a minimum of 330 buses every month, for various reasons.
“Putting aside buses has a crippling effect on the already skeletal bus services in the city that serve an estimated population of 35 lakh people,” says Jugal Rathi of the PMPML Pravashi Manch.
Just imagine, the plight of people waiting at bus stops, hoping to catch the next bus to their destination displayed in the PMPML schedule, which no one bothered to tell them that it has been cancelled.
“Almost hundred per cent of the time passengers are never told of the cancellations,” complains Rathi.
Even if PMPML were to try doing this it would fail miserably. It takes the central PMPML office more than a month to compile figures from its ten depots to know how many buses it had to cancel.
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