The traffic police have cracked the whip on private inter-city luxury buses,ending their free run of the city. Luxury bus operators say in the last two days,the police have banned them from plying within the city,denying them several pick-up points at Deccan,Kothrud,Karve Road,Aundh,Swargate and areas adjoining the two railway stations Pune and Shivajinagar. This means passengers,too,will have to travel some distance to board these buses henceforth. We cannot have these buses plying within residential areas or stopping to pick passengers on congested roads. We have identified 102 roads,especially narrow ones,within the heart of the city where heavy vehicles including luxury buses will not be allowed. These buses should use roads outside the city like those leading to Mumbai,Nashik,Kolhapur,Solapur and Satara, said DCP (traffic) Manoj Patil. The traffic police have been on this drive for a fortnight now,having intensified its operation in the last two days. Predictably,the department has earned the ire of private bus operators. If their intention is to clear the traffic,they should do it for government buses like Asiad,Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation buses,government Volvos like Shivneri and Mahabus, said Ravindra More,manager of Prasanna Travels. Now,major travel agencies like Neeta Travels and Prasanna use a private parking lot at Samgamwadi to drop off passengers and park their buses. Other private operators use parking lots at Yerwada and Nigdi. From Tuesday,we have been using tempos and small vehicles to drop passengers at the parking lots. We are using the Waka-Aundh route and are forced to halt near Shivajinagar, Neeta Travels divisional head (Pune) Bhwanil Sanghvi said. Last month,the traffic police and the Regional Transport Authority designated several places in where heavy vehicles were allowed parking near Raja Bahadur Mill,Gunjan Talkies at Yerwada,Aundh octroi post,Chandni Chowk,Raja Gandhi Garden at Katraj,Bopodi octroi post,Balewadi octroi post,Laxmi Narayan theatre (Swargate),and Bhairoba nallah. Operators say most of these places are on the outskirts and inconvenient for the passengers,especially if the buses arrive in the dead of the night. Operators said that with the government collecting taxes running into lakhs each year,the least they could do is to earmark parking stand for private buses. We are using private parking lots at the moment,but within the city,the traffic police has converted the approach roads into a no entry zone for bus operators, said Balasaheb Khedekar,president of the Private Bus Owners Association.
