Transport woes

Around 3.30 a.m. passengers congregate into a mass and rush in at the approach of a bus. This is a disturbing situation as feminine weaklings are reluctantly compelled to keep standing at times right up to their destination as the condition demands. The problem is compounded especially on Mondays as those persons employed in Colombo travel back after the week end. At times fully loaded buses are evacuated stating that still another bus would ply instead.

Just imagine the confusion and the desperate plight of unfortunate passengers in such a situation. By force of such unforeseen circumstances passengers are compelled to gird themselves up due to no fault of them. Hope and pray that Mr.Gemunu Wijeratne, the President of the Private Bus Owners’ Association will kindly look into this matter and grant relief to the hapless travelling public sooner than later.

The state transport sector also has a duty by the public. Unfortunately CTB busses do not operate at all during this time of the day. Why oh why? They also should expand their fleet of buses to cater to the crying needs of the public having prepared a time schedule from around 3 AM onward. The CTB should introduce a regulatory and supervisory team to ensure that buses ply accordingly and maintain the smooth functioning thereby. Supervisory officers could be detailed on a roster with the usual number of hours per day. It is certainly up to the Chairman of the CTB to retrieve its tarnished image which neglects its duties with brazen impunity.
Nanda Nanayakkara
Matara.