Srinagar , 26 Aug: In Srinagar city, passenger vehicles moving at a very slow speed, cause severe mental trauma and anguish to the passengers. The greed of the drivers to collect more and more money takes the journey of minutes to be completed in hours and no driver drives his vehicle until the space doesn’t get overcrowded. Passengers said that the vehicles are overcrowded to such an extent that there is no space left, whenever a commuter has to get off a vehicle and the traffic department still acted as a mute spectator in this regard. In addition to this New Bus Stand Parimpora to Lalchowk, Jahangir Chowk to Bemina, HMT, Qamarwari, Barzulla-Bagath, Rawalpora, Hyderpora, Wanabal-Rawalpora, Bagh Mehtab, Chanapora, Natipora, Nowgam, Dargah, Braien, Nishat, Shalimar, Harwan and many other routes are facing difficulties for passengers due to overcrowding and slow movement of public transport. Commuters of these routes said that they have to face mental trauma on the way because the vehicles, despite being overcrowded, stop at dozens of places unnecessarily. A resident from Shalimar said that whenever he has to travel towards Lalchowk in a passenger vehicle,it gets difficult to reach on time due to slow movement of passenger vehicles. Azhar- a Shopkeeper from Barzulla said he has a shop At Dargah Hazratbal and had to travel by passenger bus every day. “Although it takes half an hour by private car from Lalchowk to my shop, it takes one hour and twenty minutes through public transport” said Azhar, adding that many times his sales are affected due to his late arrival. Another shopkeeper Umar Ahmed said that he now boards the vehicle half an hour earlier so that he can reach his shop on time. ‘’It is not the fault of these mini bus drivers; it is fault of poor traffic rules which are implemented here and no action is taken against the violators’’, he added Meanwhile commuters have appealed to the traffic authorities to take steps to improve the system, so that they can have a sigh of relief. (CNS)
