I received a mail from S.M. Hussain, who writes, “Recently, Delhi Government has beautified and modified many bus-stops in order to earn more revenue from advertisers. But no action has been taken by the Delhi Government or Delhi Police to streamline the traffic at these bus stops to help the commuters. The commuters are also to blame for the chaotic conditions at the bus stops because they never stand inside the shelters even in the hot weather. They occupy half of the road anxiously waiting for the buses. As a result, the buses either stop before or after the bus-shelters to avoid colliding with the passengers or auto-rickshaws parked waiting for commuters.

“The moment a bus arrives, the commuters rush towards it as if there is no tomorrow unmindful of children and women. To add to this problem, hawkers take the prime space at these bus stops. Though smoking is banned in public places in Delhi, it looks bus stops are exempted from it with people smoking cigarettes and beedis because they are easily available at the corner of the shelter. It is less said the better about the chaos at bus-shelters located immediately before and after the fly-overs.

“The buses stand at these shelters waiting for commuters unmindful of the traffic jams on the fly-overs. This defeats the purpose of the fly-overs at many places in South Delhi, especially at the South Extension, Moolchand and Modi-Mill. The Delhi Police should take strict action against the buses and autorickshaws standing at the bus stops and obstructing the smooth flow of traffic. Hawker should be removed from bus-shelters and the important bus stops should be manned by traffic police for smooth flow of traffic. People should also inculcate the habit of standing inside the shelters and not on the road and should shun those buses that refuse to stand in front of the bus stop.”

Old habits die hard. Whatever the government does to improve DTC bus shelters, people won’t improve. For them only conditions improve. For a hawker, it’ll mean better place to sit and a change in landscape of the area, for commuters, it’ll be a clean and developed pavement as well as part of the road space that he occupies. The only losers on the road are the commuters who travel by their own conveyance. You can’t blame the cops also as MCD (Most Corrupt Department!) does nothing to remove these hawkers. Instead, they are a source of earning for the MCD babus. As far as the traffic police are concerned, they are already short of staff. What will happen to traffic on intersections if they are posted on bus stops? So it is for we the people to have some civic and road sense to improve conditions in Delhi.