PUNE: The public transport on Sunday received a cold response when both the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) and the MSRTC (Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation) resumed their operations, after a gap of over two-months due to the Covid-induced restrictions.
However, the officials claimed that Sundays have always seen a low passenger turnout.
“We advanced our plans of starting the services on Monday by a day so that people could know that buses will be plying from Monday.
Initially, we will start 416 buses on 179 routes,” Dattatray Zende, the traffic manager with the PMPML, told TOI.
The public transportation services in the state had been shut from April 3 as a result of second Covid wave and the restrictions that followed.
Officials of the state-owned MSRTC said that even they had a slow start with around 130 buses plying on intra-district and inter-district routes.
“The response has been satisfactory considering that today is a Sunday.
We have had an average passenger traffic of around 25% to 30% in each of the buses.
Buses plying within the district are moving with 50% capacity and no standing passengers.
Buses are ferrying passengers at full capacity to some districts, in accordance with the latest ‘break the chain’ guidelines.
It is mandatory to wear a mask during a travel,” a senior official with the Pune division of the MSRTC told TOI.