Vasco bus owners object to temp fish shed near bus stop

Claiming that the footpath was meant for passengers and that local buses moving to various destinations had been lining up along the footpath for several years, the bus owners said the temporary shed at the footpath meant that buses had to move to another location and would cause them severe inconvenience.

The local bus owners also called on Vasco Traffic PI Sudesh Naik to raise their concerns, while work was underway along the footpath. Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) Chief officer Arvind Bugde also paid a short visit to the location to inspect the work.

Speaking to reporters, a bus owner, Sajid Shaikh, said no one was aware of the work till the contractor began taking measurements and started digging the footpath.

"We had faced a similar situation a long time ago, when we were shifted to another location in a remote corner for the same Vasco fish market and we faced a lot of problems.”

“Bus owners work on fixed bus timings and every minute is important because three buses leave the bus stop within a gap of 5 minutes.”

“Authorities can shift vendors to the footpath behind the bus stop which is being utilised for shuttle service or shift them to huge landfill site near Tanya Hotel," suggested Shaikh.

“We are around 80 bus owners and we will not allow the shed to be built along the footpath meant for our passengers,” he warned.

MMC Councillor Yatin Kamurlekar, who is also a bus owner, said the Vasco fish market was a long-pending project

"The fish vendors have to be temporarily shifted along the footpath and this will surely cause some inconvenience and buses will be shifted only for around 200 metres behind, which will not make much of a difference.”

“I have already requested the bus association not to agitate and have sought their co operation to help us build the Vasco fish market. We had called the Traffic PI to identify another location for buses," said Kamurlekar.