Public transport back, but only few passengers
LUCKNOW : About 1,200 threewheelers along with 45 city buses and a few cabs took to the roads to ferry a negligible number of passengers on Monday.
The movement of public transport vehicles was slow and passengers had to wait a long time, as drivers waited for passengers to get the ride going.
“It has been decided that all vehicles will now be sanitised tomorrow and passengers can avail of services from Wednesday. Though vehicles were not used during the lockdown and those that came out today were sanitised, a fresh round will be conducted for all vehicles,” said Lucknow Auto-Rickshaw Three-wheeler Sangh (LARTS) president Pankaj Dixit.
With few passengers, a majority of three-wheeler drivers decided to call it a day by evening. And even though taxis operated, they were available at a gap of 15 or 20 minutes, while on normal days, they are available in 2 to 5 minutes. Also, while booking a taxi, the service provider issued an advisory that only those passengers who do not have symptoms and wear a mask can board the vehicle and only two passengers will be accommodated in one car. The number of private vehicles on the road was in thousands in all major areas such as Gomti Nagar, Indira Nagar, Mahanagar, Chowk and Daliganj.
People started coming out at around 9 am and stayed on roads for the entire day, though by evening, the number of vehicles went down. In all, a little over 1,000 passengers used buses during the day. Threewheelers were mostly seen at Charbagh, PGI, Polytechnic and Munshipulia. ARTO (enforcement) Sanjeev Gupta said that three-wheelers shall run from Wednesday following all protocols including sanitisation and restriction upon number of passengers: three passengers for three-wheelers and six for tempos.