Several restrictions have been imposed in Pune district to stop the increasing spread of COVID, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), Pune division has taken stricter steps to stop the spread of the virus.

Already, precautionary measures are being taken at ST stands, additionally now squads have been deployed to monitor the crowd in the MSRTC Pune division.

“We are running all the schedules of ST buses across Maharashtra, there is no change in it. But at the same time, the safety of passengers at ST stands and inside the bus is also equally important. Already, safety precautions as per state government guidelines are being taken at ST stands with proper social distancing. Passengers without face masks are not allowed inside the bus. Each and every bus is sanitised before going on the route, additionally, we have made squads with the help of ST bus conductors and stand staff to monitor the crowd,” said Ramakant Gaikwad, MSRTC Pune divisional controller.

“During the weekends, there is a lot of rush across ST stands in the division, we try our best to maintain social distancing but as the number of passengers is high, sometimes it becomes difficult to monitor the crowd. These squads will be clearing the rush of passengers by guiding them to their required ST bus or help them in getting the bus information. There will be no such impact on ST bus operations due to the newly imposed restrictions, only for the buses coming from Vidarbha side they would be reduced as lockdown is imposed in some of the cities like Amravati,” he added.

While passengers are worried about the safety and infection risk at the ST stands due to the increasing number of Covid cases in Pune, Santosh Jaybhay a regular ST bus passenger said, “I regularly travel from Pune to Solapur to my village and in the few months since the ST bus service has started there is no proper social distancing maintained at the ST stands. The premises need to be cleaned more often and strict action needs to be taken on passengers who are spitting, throwing garbage and making the stand premises dirty.”

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