Belhe bus stand's control room locked for seven years, commuters suffer
Residents demand a full-time traffic inspector at Belhe bus stand, where the control room has stayed shut for six to seven years
Belhe bus stand, built at an important spot on the Ahilyanagar-Pune district border in the Alephata area, has been struggling due to administrative neglect. Its traffic control room has remained closed for the past six to seven years, causing heavy difficulty for commuters, students and senior citizens. The station is essential given the rising number of passengers and the educational institutions nearby, yet the ST Corporation has paid it no attention, leaving villagers in the area angry.
Hundreds of people from the Belhe area rely daily on ST buses to travel to Ahilyanagar, Kalyan, Parner, Supa and nearby villages. But with the bus stand's control room shut, passengers cannot get accurate information about the timing, route and frequency of buses coming and going. As a result, people are forced to wait at the station for hours.
Because of well-known colleges and educational institutions in the area, there is a heavy crowd of school and college students here. With the control room closed, it has become very difficult for students to get a monthly bus pass made, renew it, or get information about concession schemes linked to their studies. If the control room were operational, students could get all these facilities in one place.
With no traffic controller in place, no official record is kept of ST buses arriving at the station. Taking advantage of this, several drivers and conductors skip the Belhe bus stand altogether and take buses straight out via the bypass. As a result, passengers waiting at the station do not get a bus on time, and women and the elderly often face considerable difficulty, especially at night.
While the ST Corporation is looking for new ways to boost earnings and come out of losses, the Belhe bus stand, which has considerable passenger capacity, has been left unattended for years. Despite repeated follow-ups and complaints from the gram panchayat and local villagers, the administration has taken no concrete steps. This is why passengers are now angrily asking why the bus stand has a control room but no facility.
To urgently address the disruption to students' studies, the difficulty in getting passes made, and the disorderly movement of buses, local citizens and commuters have strongly demanded that the closed traffic control room at Belhe be started immediately and that a full-time traffic inspector (TI) be permanently appointed there.
