Out of control

AHMEDABAD: What do you do when your boss is breathing right down your neck? Well, you might end up doing all the right things in a wrong way. This was precisely the condition of the bus driver, who was ferrying the 'boss of bosses' (who came from New Delhi) on a Bus Rapid Transit lane. As per the very nature of the bus service, the bus was supposed to run at a rapid speed, but the perplexed driver — while trying to be extra cautious — forgot this basic speed factor! He went on driving at a slow speed until he was told to maintain the 'normal high' speed mode. Anyway, the heavy traffic on the route and the junctions like Nehrunagar and IIM, ensured that certain things were not in his control. The boss could notice the natural and manmade handicaps well, but he was told that nothing much could be done about them. He was quite convinced that some aspects of public life were forever going to remain within the political domain and however well-meaning the administration would be, it would remain helpless.

On a truck-ride!

TALKING of a BRTS bus, its driver cabin has already been described as one comparable to that of a truck. S K Lohia, officer on special duty from the Ministry of Urban Development, while taking a ride noticed a little area the bus driver was made to manoeuvre in. He made a very startling comment about the present city transport buses — that whatever is offered to the people in the name of city buses, are bodies of buses fitted on the chassis of a truck! "What you ride in cities are not fit to be called buses, but trucks in which people are loaded like animals," believes the official. Anybody listening, AMTS or bus body builders?

... contd.