GUWAHATI: The travel time from Lokhra to Paltan Bazar in Guwahati has increased several fold along with a corresponding hike in fares of shared taxis and the pain of slow moving traffic. Previously it used to take maximum 30 minutes to reach Paltan Bazar from Lokhra, but now the commute time is 1.30 hours to 2 hours.
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It is all thanks to the ongoing construction of the flyover between Lal Ganesh and Cycle Factory besides several other works in the area.
A team from GPlus was at Paltan Bazar shared taxi junction on October 3 and asked around twenty passengers reaching the place about the time it took.
“It took me two hours to reach Paltan Bazar from Lokhra.” Others felt it took around 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours to reach Paltan Bazar from Lokhra.
Another GPlus team boarded a Magic taxi from Lokhra plying towards Paltan Bazar. The taxi did not leave from Lokhra till it was overloaded. According to the permit rules provided to the shared taxis, the seating capacity is 8, including the driver, but the taxi was carrying 11 people, including the driver.
The journey started from Lokhra and as the taxi reached Saukuchi there was a huge jam because of some pipe laying work ongoing in the stretch from Saukuchi to Jyotikuchi. From Jyotikuchi Tiniali, also known as Shankar Hotel, it took around 25 minutes to reach Lal Ganesh because of the road repair work and culvert construction work. From Lal Ganesh it took 20 minutes to reach Barsapara or Battalian Gate. Thereafter, because the traffic is diverted towards Dhirenpara owing to the construction work of Lal Ganesh flyover the taxi was plying towards Dhirenpara very slowly. It took around 30 minutes to reach Dhirenpara from Barsapara.
From Dhirenpara, it took around 30 minutes to reach Cycle Factory through Ambari. From Cycle Factory it took around 25 minutes to reach Arya Nagar through Bishnupur and thereafter it took another five minutes to reach Paltan Bazar. So it took around 2 hours to reach Paltan Bazar in a none too pleasant physical condition.
The fare from Lokhra to Paltan Bazar per person is Rs. 40 which was Rs. 20 before and it is increased because the vehicles have to be diverted from Barsapara.
It needs to be mentioned that across the journey none of the stretch of roads were smooth, either there were construction work going on or pipe laying or the roads were in shambles. There was no enforcement on the load of the vehicles neither the stoppage timings. At many stoppages the taxis wait for more than 10 minutes to fill the vehicles.
A source in DTO said that time to time drive against overloading is done but still the drivers do not follow rules.
A traffic police official said that due to multiple construction work and huge volume of vehicles the traffic congestion in the area has increased but it will be eased after construction work is over.
But for now the commuters are suffering.