RTC Bus Journey turns nightmare: Ramblings of a passenger

Hyderabad to Vizag a routine journey turned into a nightmare to 40 odd passengers on 4 June 2015 night for those who boarded the APSRTC bus service #3374. The bus started around 8 PM from the MGBS bus terminal in Hyderabad. The bus is just like a palle velugu bus (village route special) though its boasted of being a semi luxury its body has lot of tinkering and looked very odd with its hand painted bottle green colour inside the cabin. There is not much light inside to search even our seat numbers and somehow with our phone light we were able to find seats.

An hour of jerking gear shifts and vibration full of travel crossed the outskirts of Hyderabad. One of the passengers requested the bus attendant (co-driver) to switch on the television facility. The co-driver with a question mark on his face tried all switches and fuses but unfortunately it did not turn on. A Couple of enthusiastic fellow passengers also tried their hands connecting some loose wires hanging to switch board to get the TV display but their efforts yielded sweat on their faces but no sign of TV video working.

Three hours passed on and reached a toll gate on the Hyderabad-Vijayawada highway around 2am. The driver stopped the engine as there was a queue of trucks. The driver tried to ignite the engine once queue had cleared but unfortunately it did not start. Nearly for 45 minutes, both the drivers opened the cabin engine cover tried hitting the engine area some where with a rod from the top, tried to rotate the self motor by connecting some wires etc., but could not succeed. Toll gate authorities who are well aware the condition of these buses brought a crane without our bus driver’s request and pulled the bus so that driver makes gear shift to ignite the engine. Thank god after a couple of pull and push, the bus engine started. All passengers who were just into their nap woke up due to these jerks. What would have been our fate if the self motor had failed at a remote area.

The journey restarted again but with a great shock to all of us including the driver and co-driver as the head lights were not functioning. The bus started its journey without lights on in that scary night. We were all worried but but the driver duo was reluctant to stop. They continued their drive in the dark saying that in another 2 hours light will come up as it's summer time. We were also made to understand that these things were quite common and they are used to this kind of situations in APSRTC as well as TSRTC. It means that the drivers can drive the bus even with their eyes closed. OMG!

Perhaps Luck saved us that night. The confidence of safe journey in state run bus transport vanished from our minds with this journey. It's high time both the governments discard these buses which are aged or at least use them for long journey that too in the night. I also request for an enquiry into this particular trip.

By Raghu bhushan Eranki