Spate of rallies and the face-off between the police and the protesting students brought the city to a standstill on a busy weekday.
Apprehending disturbance, citizens of Kolkata slipped into an unofficial holiday today and most of the people stayed indoors postponing their outside activities for the day. Even as students heaved a sigh of relief as most of the city schools announced suspension of classes, the day was a nightmare for employees of the private sector and workers heading to their daily duties. According to private and minibus operators, during the morning hours, few buses hit the city streets.
Anticipating the transport woes, workers and office goers started early to be able to reach their workplace before the ‘disturbance’ started. After 9 am, bus connectivity between the twin cities, Howrah and Kolkata, were almost completely disrupted, according to the operators. “The connectivity via Howrah Bridge and Vidyasagar Setu was also disrupted. Due to this, around 2,000 private buses and minibuses are off the roads in the two cities,” informed the general secretary of All Bengal Bus Minibus Samannay Samiti, Rahul Chatterjee.
As per operators, few buses were plied in the northern and eastern parts of the city. However, later following a protest rally in College Street, bus services in this part of the city also were disconnected. With citizens retreating indoors, there were hardly any boarders for app cabs. According to the online app cab unions, even though there were a sufficient number of cabs in other parts of the city, their demand was negligible.
As the day progressed, and the situation became intense between the protesters and the police at Howrah Bridge that turned into a ‘warzone,’ passengers arriving at Howrah station faced a harrowing time reaching their destination. Those arriving at the station for availing a train also faced difficulties in availing a transport as buses could not be spotted while online app cabs also vanished from the roads. According to app cab operators, till 9 am few cabs were allowed near the station. However, as the tension escalated, bookings in the apps were not available for Howrah station and a few kilometres adjoining to areas like Liluah, Salkia. To add to the woes of the stranded commuters, following the restrictions and barricading, more than half of the online cabs did not hit the city streets at least till 7pm, according to the cab operators.
As surface transport came to a standstill, commuters took to the Metro to reach their destinations. Howrah Metro station witnessed increased footfall with commuters thronging to the underground route. According to the city Metro office, till 5 pm, around 47,000 passengers travelled in Green Line-2 of Kolkata Metro Railway, today. On 20 August, Tuesday, the passenger count recorded in this corridor was around 28,000 till 5 pm. As informed by the city Metro office, maximum rush was observed at Howrah Maidan and Howrah station.