BHUBANESWAR: The city bus services is crawling to normalcy after the strike. Out of the 95 operational city buses, 79 are plying on the roads of Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Puri now. Due to the drop in the number of operational buses, services on the routes like Bhubaneswar-Cuttack and Bhubaneswar-Puri have been affected adversely. Also a few long routes inside the city like Airport-Nandankanan and Dumduma-VSS Nagar have been hit.Controversies arose after the employees went on strike alleging discrepancies in the way Dream Team Sahara (DTS) has treated its employees. The agitators still allege that DTS has wrongfully terminated the employment of several employees and also laid off a few who were involved in the strike.DTS Chairman Nishikant Mishra denied this and said, “Only show cause notice has been served to those who have been on leave for more than seven days. They have been asked to give satisfactory reasons for their absence from work.”Presently, they have 350 odd workforce of whom 200 are working for 79 buses. According to Mishra, many of the employees who had been leave during the strike, are yet to return.They have had to replace them with temporary staff to continue the services.Meanwhile, in a recent press release, the City Bus Karmachari Sangha demanded that the city bus services should be brought under Odisha State Road Transport Corporation.Another issue that is creating problem for the city bus is the absence of an independent parking space. The buses are operating from the Master Canteen depot since inception. Though the new bus stand coming up in Pokhariput was scheduled to be ready three months back, the construction work has not finished yet.Similarly the two bus stands of Puri have a stay order on them. Initially, the Government had decided that 25 buses would run on this route, but the stand problem could allow only five.
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