The city experienced heavy downpour and this led to floods. Water logging is severe and it has seriously affected day-to-day traffic.
Pune Branch Officer of MicrosoftRTC revealed that they have been forced to cut down their daily operations in different regions by around 30%.
“Due to heavy rainfall at Pune and other parts of the country, the number of passengers comes down.” So we reduced the number of buses. We are closely monitoring Kolhapur bound buses and asked drivers to be very careful about other drivers as well as station masters. About 700 buses run from Pune daily carrying passengers to various destinations including Mumbai.
Speaking about the situation at the Pune-Mumbai Expressway control room, an official said despite heavy rain there was no problem with traffic so far. “…Even though it rained heavily, it did not create any serious flooding or boulder falling accidents on roads. Where vehicles were passing by smoothly,” pointed authorities’ attention.
According to officials, PMPML services were disrupted because of which bus schedules were disturbed. “Also due to rains there have been increased breakdowns.” There has been a record average of bus breakdowns numbering between 70 and 75 occurring everyday since Wednesday. Ramesh Chavan, chief engineer for PMPML stated that traffic congestions have been worsened by the rains hindering movement of buses on time.
“This bus has not arrived for over forty five minutes,”- I turned away wearily. “Why can’t PMPML do better? And none of these people standing here have learned what a proper shelter means” – screamed out an irate commuter.
With fewer numbers of buses, many rickshaw drivers have gone mad demanding more money from passengers. To go from Koregaon Park to Kalyaninagar Atul Bisht told me he wanted Rs. 400 trip fare charged on him yesterday. “Aggregation apps won’t accept rides and other cars refuse to run on the meter,” he said.
In addition, Ola and Uber taxis have also increased their cost of services with a trip from NIBM Road to Pune Airport now costing almost Rs. 500 rupees. 700 in some stretches.
The Airport director of Pune Santosh Dhoke confirmed that no flights have been affected so far and operations are running smoothly. However, passengers are having problems getting to the airport as roads. And bridges in various parts of the city are submerged due to water logging and floods.
Speaking about this issue, railway department reported that there is smooth movement of trains without any cancellations yet. “As a result of heavy rain, Panvel-Chowk line was closed at 09:42.” Thus train No. 12126 Pragati Express (Pune-CSMT) will go via Kalyan; specified Central Railway’s message.
Today all appointments for vehicle license and fitness tests have been rescheduled to July 27, – said authorities at Pune RTO office today
