While Panaji was being made a smart city, bus shelters along the Dayanand Bandodkar Marg to Caranzalem (old Syndicate Bank) were demolished last year to widen the roads and lay utility pipes. In Oct 2023 a few shelters were erected which, unlike the previous ones, were smaller and had no roof nor seating arrangements. Later all these shelters were dismantled and only a smart shelter was erected opposite to Kala Academy.
This fancy-looking shelter with two sides and a roof and no back wall cannot protect the people from rain and sun. Nor are there seating arrangements. A non-functional ticket vending machine and CCTV cameras (hopefully working) are cosmetic additions. Officials inspected and found the shelter unfit to be accessed by persons with disability. Who authorised these shelters and kept changing the designs without thinking of the size, safety and comfort? The bus ‘smart’ shelter has a nicely colourful route map showing the electric bus services that were to start on 19th Jan. Where are the promised new buses?
Recently Revenue Minister and Panaji MLA, ‘Babush’ Monserrate pointed out the above drawbacks and alleged a scam in erecting the substandard shelters. He fears a huge revenue loss to the City Corporation of Panaji because of the addition of advertisement rights between Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited and an advertisement-cum-event company. The above issues indicate an utter lack of coordination between the various departments and stakeholders and resulted in wasted money and time and created hardships to the commuters. Hope the government does not shelter those who are responsible for the ‘smart’ mess.
