Day 1 of Break the Chain: Public transport arms thrown off gear in Mumbai

Day 1 of Break the Chain saw a mixed response from bus commuters on Monday With people not allowed to board BEST buses beyond the limit there were longer queues at bus stops However it was seen that rules were followed at the first few bus stops but eventually on longer routes many buses got crowded and it was back to square one Angry commuters complained that many buses skipped stops to avoid crowdsSince the BEST Undertaking has replaced most of the big single and double deck buses with smaller 20seater buses the crowds swelled ldquoThere has been a crowd at the bus stop since morning as the BEST staff did not allow us to get in after all seats were full I took an auto thenrdquo said Ramakant Gholap from Bandra east who was going to Kurla westCrowds were aggressiveldquoThere were serpentine queues at many bus stops since morning and the crowds will lead to COVID19 infections there if not inside the busrdquo Siddiqui Mohammed Sajid another commuter at Andheri said At many places where crowds became aggressive as they were not allowed to get into buses the BEST staff gave in to avoid a lawandorder situationldquoEven the state transport buses on duty of BEST did not follow the restrictions at many places as it was not at all practical since the frequency of buses remained the same If the government wants to do implement such restrictions they should go back to planning and redesign the timetable to have more and more buses per routerdquo Ghanashyam Tomar a regular commuter saidCommuter Aavesh Mukadam took pictures with timestamps and posted on the BESTrsquos social media account stating that commuters were hanging outside from BEST and MSRTC buses like any other day and questioned where the new rule of only seating passengers waslsquoSome buses emptyrsquoBut Deepak Yadav found some buses to be empty ldquoI observed that BEST buses are not allowing passengers over seat capacity Itrsquos a good move to tackle the pandemic and I support it However the government was supposed to increase number of buses before doing this Please think about daily wage workersrdquo he saidBEST officials said it was just the first day of the new guidelines and it will take time for things to settle down Interestingly the BEST PRO had something else to say ldquoThe notifications will be implemented from 8 pm this eveningrdquo the BEST spokesperson saidEye on the BESTUndertaking owns1623 single deckers48 double deckers466 Midi normal25 HybridIn all 2162 busesBuses on lease1231 AC MidiMini3396 Mega total both