Public expresses mixture of opinion
LUCKNOW: Often, there is no better way to feel the pulse of the people than to hit the road. And HT did just that, travelling from Lucknow to Kanpur by bus to listen to public opinion about the Yogi Adityanath government.
Indeed, during the 96-kilometre journey, the Yogi government’s first year in office was the topic of a lively discussion for many passengers.
Some lauded chief minister Yogi Adityanath for his simplicity and honesty. Others didn’t hesitate in criticising the government. Our journey began from the Charbagh bus station, where we boarded a Basti depot bus UP 53 DT 6721 that shuttles between Basti and Kanpur. Price rise was one of the issues that evoked concern among the passengers.
“The government failed to control the prices of essential commodities. There is no development work taking place across the state, barring the beautification work that was done only in Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar area during the UP investors’ summit,” said Saurabh Shukla, a young professional.
A college goer Vikram Shah said, “The Anti-Romeo drive also brought embarrassing moments for many brothers and sisters.”
“No government has any right to change people’s eating habits. The ban did nothing, but gave a chance to traders to raised the price of meat,” Zubair Khan, another youth, said.
Someth Tripathi, a techie with a multinational firm in Noida, said: “People had many expectations from the budget but they hardly got anything. It seemed that both the Centre and the state government were focused more on the poor and corporate, rather than the salaried class.”
The bus conductor and the driver too joined the discussion. They highlighted the recent hike in bus fares and frequent movement of unauthorised buses on the Lucknow-Basti route. “The government recently raised the fare by 9 paise per kilometre for both AC and non AC buses, thus increasing the ticket price by Rs 10 per 100 Km. They should have exempted the non-AC buses that are meant for the people who cannot afford to travel in AC buses,” the bus conductor said.
The driver said unauthorised buses were making a big dent in the revenue earned by the UPSRTC buses.
In UP, there are around 12,500 buses —9,500 of the UPSRTC and the remaining 3000 private ones that are attached with roadways. There are around 1062 buses in the Lucknow region that has seven depots —Charbagh Kaiserbagh, Alambagh, Awadh depot, Upnagariya depot, Haidergarh depot and Barabanki depot.
Some women said the state budget had nothing for housewives. “We were expecting much from the government, especially on women safety. But there seems to be no check on crime in general. Crime against women has became the in-thing nowadays,” said Sudha Gupta, a teacher with a private school in Kanpur.