HYDERABAD: “Foot-board travelling is dangerous. Someone at your home is waiting for you.” This is new mantra of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, Greater Hyderabad Zone officials to convince people not to travel on foot-boards of buses in the city.The tendency of the city youths to travel on foot-boards and lean outside the buses it not just leading to a rising number of accidents but also leading to theft cases in running buses. Many of these youths flick mobile phones and purses of other passengers and hop out of running buses quickly. With the grievance redressal cell receiving a number of complaints from passengers about inconvenience caused by foot-board travellers and the rising number of petty thefts in running buses, the Greater Hyderabad zone officials are all set to organise a special programme to create awareness among passengers, especially teenagers and students, against foot-board travelling and about safe and secure journey in city buses. Foot-board travelling has led to many accidents in the past with some even becoming fatalities. Many a times, the overloaded bus tilts to one side leading to kids falling out and get hurt or even get hit by another vehicle. Recently, 47-year-old K Narasimha, an employee of a private firm, suffered grievous injuries after he slipped from a running bus at Secunderabad station. The reason for this was that passengers inside the bus were unable to get out due to a number of teenagers standing on the foot-board. “We are organising special drive to educate passengers, taking a serious note of the dangers of foot-board travelling. The other reason that leads to foot-board travelling in overcrowding in buses. To meet the additional demand, we have introduced as many as 2,000 new buses in the twin cities,” said A Purushotham Naik, APSRTC executive director, Greater Hyderabad Zone. “We are also ready to take the assistance of traffic police to curb the menace,” he added. Meanwhile, the theft cases in running buses are also on the rise with the Sanjeeva Reddy Nagar (SR Nagar) police receiving increasing complaints from passengers day by day. “The reports of missing mobile phones and other belongings are reported mainly in the peak hours of 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. We also nabbed various offenders based on the complaints lodged and recovered some mobile phones,” said P Krishna Murthy, inspector at S R Nagar police station. Passengers travelling in city buses can now lodge complaints regarding foot-board travellers, irregular timings of buses, curtailment of services and arrogant behaviour of staff to the new passenger grievance cell by dialling 7702399901 (Hyderabad region) and 7702399902 (Secunderabad region).
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