Hudhud destroys Visakhapatnam bus shelters

Visakhapatnam: Commuters waiting for bus services at various places in the city are bracing themselves against the scorching heat as most of the bus shelters in the city were badly damaged due to cyclone Hudhud that hit Vizag city directly on October 12. People stand under the open sky and wait for the buses to take a bus to their destination.

Daily around 2.5 lakh students, employees and other commuters travel by city buses in Vizag through around 700 buses. GVMC is maintaining around 200 bus shelters in the city and half of them were demolished or partly damaged during cyclone. Shelters at MVP Colony, Venkojipalem, Appu Ghar, Madhurawada and many more are destroyed and the passengers are standing under open sky.

Shelters which were built with galvanised iron sheets were totally damaged as the huge trees had fallen on them. The high-speed gales have also demolished the shelters. Apart from these, the new shelters build in the project of Bus rapid transit system(BRTS) have also been damaged.

The commuters are unable to find the trees to stand under them as they were also fallen during the cyclone and they are waiting under the open sky, and feeling uncomfortable there.

Around 35 BRTS shelters were established in the city limits and around 16 were ruined. Actually, most of the bus shelters were build and maintained by the advertisers and donors. So the authorities have to inform those advertisers and donors to rebuild them. The town planning authorities are conducting a survey to identify the damaged shelters to intimate them. As per their estimation, around 90-100 were destroyed.

City planner D. Venkat Ratnam said, “We are counting the damaged shelters and later we will talk to the sponsors or advertisers. If they are not interested to rebuilt them, than the GVMC will take over those issues. We will complete the survey within four five days and later we will think about the those shelters, wether to rebuilt or to repair them.”