Karnataka's BMTC, KSRTC operate fleet as per demand on day of bandh

The statewide bandh for Cauvery water affected bus and metro services, both in Bengaluru and some southern parts of the state.

Out of the 5,602 BMTC schedules in Bengaluru, 3,587 were operational. However, many buses in the morning were seen running almost completely empty as the number of passengers was scarce, only picking up a little in the evening. Sources in the BMTC said that another 100 to 150 buses might have been operational in the evening based on changing demand.

Sources from the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) said that, as of 3 pm, about 73,000 people commuted using the metro. “This number was much less than Tuesday, when over 90,000 people rode the metro. This number would be well over 2.5 lakh by 3 pm,” said Shankar M, Executive Director, Operations and Maintenance, BMRCL.

By 5 pm, the number rose to 93,779, compared to 1,17,567 commuters on September 26, as per BMRCL.

As of 9 am, only 1,948 KSRTC buses had departed from depots across 15 divisions in southern Karnataka. The scheduled departures across these divisions were 3,253, which meant actual departures were nearly 60 per cent (59.88 per cent) of the regular scheduled departures as of 9 am.

The depots at Mangaluru and Puttur saw 97.59 per cent and 98.92 per cent of the scheduled buses departing as usual, indicating that the bandh did not affect operations. Mysuru depot saw only 7 of the 447 scheduled departures (1.57 per cent) occur as of 9 am. By 4 pm, KSRTC data showed 3,385 buses out of the scheduled 5,268 buses departed as per the schedule. Mangaluru, Puttur, Shivamogga, and Chitradurga saw nearly no disruption as 93-98 per cent of the departures occurred as scheduled.

Services were affected in Mysuru and Chamarajanagar, with only 148 of 825 departures (17.94 per cent) occurring out of 9 KSRTC depots in Mysuru and 101 of 384 departures (26.3 per cent) of 4 depots in Chamarajanagar, as of 4 pm. About 64.26 per cent of the buses across 15 divisions of the transport corporation in the state were operational as of 4 pm. Services normalised by evening, said KSRTC sources.”