Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport operates 30 extra buses as MSRTC strikes

The Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport is operating 30 extra buses due to the strike by the MSRTC employees that started on Oct 28

The Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT) is operating 30 extra buses due to the strike by the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) employees.

Commuters line up to board one of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport buses in Vashi as MSRTC employees go on strike. (BACHCHAN KUMAR/HT PHOTO)

Even as NMMT is providing services across Navi Mumbai and its peripheries, the ST buses were a dominant factor on four specific routes –from Koparkhairane to Uran, from Panvel to Dadar, from Panvel to Kalyan and from Vashi/Panvel to Khopoli. The commuters on these routes faced a lot of troubles when MSRTC started the strike on October 28.

Yogesh Kaduskar, general manager of NMMT, said, “Taking the inconveniences of the commuters into consideration, we are now running 30 extra buses on those routes. These buses are doing around 80 trips a day to ensure that the commuters travelling to those places do not face any problem. We will continue with this service till MSRTC calls off the strike.”

The commuters, however, complain that despite these extra buses, the frequency is not up to the expectations.

Sudheer Salvi, a 51-year-old Nerul resident, said, “Earlier, for travelling from Navi Mumbai to Mumbai on Sion-Panvel Highway, the buses were available every 15-20 minutes (due to MSRTC’s Panvel-Dadar route). Now we have to wait up to 45 minutes to board an NMMT bus to go to Dadar.”

Because of the MSRTC strike, NMMT’s other buses going to Mumbai are also receiving a relatively better response. “We have regular buses going to Bandra, Borivali, World Trade Centre, Andheri and Mulund among others. As ST buses are now absent on the roads, more people are boarding our buses to commute locally,” another NMMT official said.