Determined to provide public transport services and also expand its operations, under the able leadership of Mr. Hitendra Thakur, MLA and President of Bahujan Vikas Aghadi, the Vasai Virar Transport Service (VVTS) started a new bus service from Vasai West Station to Suncity (Vasai West). For the last two years residents from the locality have been demanding the bus route to be started to the Corporator Mr. Kalpesh Mankar. Finally, the VVTS paid heed to the demand of the Suncitizens’ and have begun the service, making it the 44th route of the VVTS under the Vasai Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVCMC).
Suncity is a residential area comprising of a population of approximately 3000 people. For the commute, the residents were either dependent on their personal vehicles (cars and bikes) or auto rickshaws. However, lack of parking space at the station for people traveling to Mumbai (who usually keep their vehicles parked near the station) and rising fuel prices meant the residents had to heavily depend on autos, whose frequency was minuscule and rates high for a single person coming from the railway station.
In order to check the response, the bus will initially run from 6 am to 10 am and 4:45 pm to 10 pm every day. Addressing the gathering Mr. Pritesh Patil, Chairman, VVTS, said: “We realized that people were finding hard to commute between Suncity and Vasai West Station due to lack of public transport and the exorbitant charges (Rs. 54 to and fro, daily) such as Rs. 40 from station (no sharing) and Rs. 14 per seat from Suncity by the auto rickshaws, whose frequency too was less. We decided to start this bus service. Our bus fare along the stretch of 2.5 kms will only be Rs. 7 for a one-way single journey and people can get in to the bus from anywhere and get down at any stop on the route.” Several studies have shown that public transport helps not only mobility but also contributes significantly to reduce pollution, traffic congestion on roads and save expenditure on fuels, thus the start of the new bus service has elated the residence of not only in Suncity but people living on this entire stretch. With this the common working middle class will be able to save Rs. 40 per day.
In the presence of Ex-Chairman, Mr. Bharat Gupta and Mr. Pritesh Patil along with Mr. Kalpesh Mankar and several other dignitaries from the Municipal Corporation, the bus was flagged off by the current Mayor of VVCMC, Mr. Pravin Shetty and Ex-Mayor Mr. Narayan Mankar. While Mr. Shetty stressed on the importance of bus services and particularly this bus route by urging people to use it frequently, Mr. Mankar highlighted about the successful partnership the corporation has with Bhagirathi Transport Corporation Pvt. Ltd. (BTCPL). He stated: “The VVCMC who has a total of 160 buses in partnership with BTCPL is probably the only corporation in India that gets a royalty of Rs.1000 per bus as compared to other corporations in the State of Maharashtra that have to roll out funds for the sustainability of their public transport services.” The new route is thus testimony to VVCMC’s commitment that public transportation is inalienable and a fundamental social need of citizens and it has to be fulfilled by any means.