Kochi: Private buses decide to stop services indefinitely

Kochi: Private buses running on Palarivattom – Kakkanad stretch of the Civil Lane Road will stop services indefinitely from Friday protesting its poor condition.

From Friday, buses heading to Kakkanad from Ernakulam will end the service at Palarivattom and return to Ernakulam.

District Private Bus Owners’ Association (PBOA) general secretary K,V. Suneer said the poor condition and traffic congestion were forcing them to stop services.

“If the authorities had done patchworks and filled the potholes earlier, things would not have been as bad as today. For the past eight months, they have not done any patchworks here,” he said.

“The bad condition on the whole stretch is causing huge damages to the vehicles, including tyre bursts. Every day, we have to do mechanical works which are too costly.

'Leaf spring bushings’ in the vehicles are getting damaged badly on each trip. Besides that, due to this heavy traffic caused by the potholes, the fuel consumption has also gone up.”

Meanwhile, M.B. Sathyan, general secretary, Private Bus Operators’ Federation said that they had informed the concerned authorities many times before, but to no avail.

“The buses running in the Ernakulam – Kakkanad stretch which have four trips a day, cannot even complete two trips because of this. The expenditure is much larger than expected, and we are financially broken, he said.