With uncomfortable, overloaded buses, commuting in Srinagar continues to be an ordeal. Ibrahim Wani reports on the travails of commuting in Srinagar.
It takes him half an hour to reach Lal Chowk though it is just four kilometers from his home. “The bus stops every few meters, at times not less than twenty times. It is a daily ordeal,” says Shakoor Rather, who lives in Bemina. He is a university student.
From Lal Chowk another ordeal awaits him – the bus to the university, which takes another hour. “A large portion of my day is spent on commuting, crammed in an uncomfortable bus.” When he reaches home he is exhausted, and left with hardly any energy to study.
The rules state that he could avail student’s concession in bus fare. But it has been years since a bus conductor accepted the half-rate fare students are supposed to pay. Forget concession, the conductors sometimes don’t even return the change, he alleges, “The conductors usually inflate the rate. So instead of six rupees we have to pay seven”. Shakoor spends around 30 rupees daily on the buses.
“Once when I was in Delhi, I was shocked to see that a student purchases a bus pass for Rs 12.50 for the entire month, and it is honoured every time.”
Shakeeb Ashai, also a university student, lives in Kanipora. His class starts at 10:30 in the morning. He leaves his house at 8:30. “I have to wait for the bus for about 15 minutes, and most of the times it is overloaded. I have to board the overloaded bus because there is no other option,” he says.
He further adds that even after leaving his house at 8:30, most of the times he reaches the university late. Everyday he spends more than three hours in commuting.
Even in the overloaded buses, conductors keep on herding more and more people into it. “Usually more than 20 people could be found standing in a small minibus,” says Faisal, a student of Islamia College. “The buses go past traffic policeman at every square, but they hardly seem to care.”
“This is not a helicopter or an aircraft,” is the usual response of a bus driver, if passengers ask him to drive a bit faster. “They often drive the buses at a snail pace. It takes me 40 minutes to reach office, which is just seven kilometers from my home,” says Omar Ganie, a Government employee.
The slow moving city buses often cause traffic jams. “The bus drivers stop anywhere, they like to, impeding traffic,” says Maqbool, who uses his car to travel. “They have no sense of any traffic law,” he adds.
Shireen Tramboo faced all these problems and more. “For a girl to travel daily using public transport is a nightmare. it is torturous,” says Shireen. To avoid the harassment Shireen bought a scooty.
“The public transport is forcing people to opt for private vehicles,” she says. “People will go for a bank loan to purchase a vehicle, than to face this ordeal of traveling in a bus daily.”
However, the increasing number of private vehicles has led to more problems – traffic jams and pollution. “But compared to the daily harassment these problems are manageable,” she says.
Every bus reserves some seats for women. “But no one cares for this here. Many times even old women have to stand. It is like everyone has subconsciously agreed to it that this rule will not be applied,” says Abina, an engineering student. “Most of the harassment takes place when the buses are overloaded,” she adds. Once when she scolded a man who was repeatedly trying to come close to her in the bus, she was in for a shock. “Other passengers just ignored. No one seemed to care. I had to alight from the bus.”
Romana (name changed), a consultant with an international NGO has also faced harassment while traveling in public transport. “A man just came and sat next to me even when there were many empty seats in the bus. After sometime he started touching me.” When she started scolding him, he got angry and asked her why she was making a scene. He said, “Why are you making a big scene. Fighting is normal between couples. You were ok yesterday.” Then everyone in the bus was commenting about the character of the girls. “What could I do then?” she asks. With tears in her eyes she alighted from the bus, even not asking the conductor to return the balance amount out of the 100-rupee note she had given him.
Girls also talk about the ‘gangs of boys’ roaming outside colleges in the afternoon, when it is closing time “They just roam around women’s colleges at closing time, and then jump into the buses as soon as the girls board,” says Rida, a college student. “Many of us simply prefer to walk, and then board the buses after a distance. A girl has limited options,” she adds.
“The most unfortunate thing is that the culprits are not often teenagers as is expected. Most of the times, it is grown up men who indulge in such despicable acts,” says Rida.
Gulshan Akhter, Station House Officer at the women’s police station, Ram Bagh, admits that the harassment faced by women in public transport is a big problem. “But no case is registered with the police,” she says. Rida adds that a girl approaching police in Kashmir carries social stigma.
Tabasum is handicapped. She suffers from muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that weakens the muscles. She cannot walk. “There are no reserved seats for handicapped people like us in buses. We are not even able to board a bus,” she says. There is no reservation for handicapped people in buses. There are more than 3 lakh disabled persons in the state. Public transport suited for them seems a pipe-dream. “I have to board an auto (rickshaw) every time I have to travel,” says Tabassum.
In states like Delhi, seats are reserved for handicapped persons. They have special facilities at the bus stops also.
“The condition of buses is such that it is a disaster in waiting,” says Dr Othman Saleem. “The space between the seats is so little that dashboard fractures are high risk.” Dashboard fractures are fractures of thigh bone, and include hip joint dislocation, due to instantaneous physical shock. “An instant brake, and you can be on bed for six weeks,” he says. There are hardly any proper bus stops in Srinagar. They exist just in name.
Then there is high risk of head injuries due to the little headroom in the busses, he says.
Among the most common ailments suffered due to travel in buses is shoulder, neck and back ache. “The reason is that most of the times the people standing have to stoop, and remain cramped in uncomfortable positions for long,” he adds. “One more thing is the spread of respiratory diseases. When there are 40 people in a small confined space, communicable diseases like cough and cold, and flu spread easily.”
Mohammad Shafi is a bus driver. He supports a family of six by operating a16-seater 407 Tata minibus.
“We hardly make ends meet,” says Shafi. He makes only two trips between Lal Chowk and HMT in a day, a distance of around 11 kms. Each round trip saves him around 300 rupees. That translates to around 600 rupees on a sunny day. “I pay 100 rupees to Rashid (bus conductor),” he says. That leaves me with around 500 rupees per day, and around 13 to 14 thousand rupees per month. “In this I have to manage the taxes, the repairs, insurance, the traffic police, and my family,” he says. “I am left with no option but to maximize my earning in one trip.”
Shafi is lucky. He has no bank loan to repay. Most of the drivers have to pay monthly installments ranging from 4000- 5000 rupees. “What is the option they have?” asks Shafi.
“Also the first target in case of hartal or protest is a bus. The past three years have been particularly difficult for transporters,” he adds.
The number of buses plying in Srinagar is only 2400, according to RTO Kashmir, Mohammad Anees. This number has remained more or so constant since the last three years. “In the last three years only one new bus has been added in the KMDA,” he says. “A bus does not come cheap besides it is not a profitable business today. So to most people it does not make business sense to buy a new bus. Also there is no government subsidy now. ”
The buses in Srinagar are of three types, the highest number being of the 16-seater 407 Tata buses, the 24-seater minibuses, and 25-seater Mazda buses. The Tata 407 was designed as a goods carrier vehicle, and is seldom used to ferry passengers outside the state.
“On court directive to decongest Lal Chowk, all the bus stands were removed from the area,” says Anees. Along with the removal of the bus stations, new routes were specified, but these routes decreased bus frequency. “A bus which has to go to Rawalpora, has to leave from Batamaloo, then go from the interiors of Magarmal Bagh, until it reaches the Exhibition Crossing, where it picks up more passengers. This adds a waiting period of around 30 minutes, and a distance of around 3 kilometers, which means that lesser number of buses are on the actual route, a lesser bus frequency. Similar is the case with other routes,” he explains.
“Another problem is the timings. As the school and office timings are the same a lot of people travel at the same time putting heavy pressure on public transport,” he adds.
To maximize their earnings from the lesser number of trips they can make, the transporters fill in as many passengers as they could in the bus. So the bus owners add more seats, and end up cramping passengers of space besides overloading the busses.
Regarding the conductors not accepting concessional fares from students Anees says, they don’t receive any complaints. The student concession can be availed by a maximum of seven persons at a time.
“Complaints related to this issue do not reach us. Sometime back, there was this case when some students from Biscoe school had complained, but when a team approached them from the office they were unwilling to identify the culprits,” said RTO Anees.
Until the authorities put in a proper regulatory system, widen roads and put a transport policy in place, there is no escape for commuters from the daily travails of commuting in Kashmir.
