Students block Shahapur-Yadgir Main Road seeking bus service

KEY STORY

• Traffic movement was disrupted for a couple of minutes on Shahapur-Yadgir Main Road near Doranahalli village on Thursday after hundreds of students studying in various colleges, both government and private, staged a flash protest demanding bus service during morning hours to enable them to reach classes on time.

• The students, who daily travel from Doranahalli to Shahapur taluk headquarters, which is eight kilometers away, are finding it difficult as they do not have bus service running on time to reach classes. Therefore, they said, the Shahapur depot of Kalyan Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (KKRTC) should operate buses exclusively from Doranahalli to Shahapur during the morning hours.

• “The problem arose as conductors of buses operating to various parts of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh from Yadgir via Doranahalli are not allowing students citing reasons that their passes are not allowed on inter-State buses. Earlier, KKRTC officials had intervened when there was a similar problem and instructed the conductors of such buses to accept student passes. However, in the recent few days, students are not being allowed to travel citing the same reason again. Therefore, we are demanding local buses from Doranahalli to Shahapur during the morning hours to reach college on time,” the students said.

• As the protest was on, State secretary of the BJP’s Raita Morcha Chandrashekhargowda Magnur and the Shahapur Police rushed to the spot and pacified the students. Mr. Maganur spoke to the KKRTC officials from the spot and requested them to operate buses from Doranahalli to Shahapur during college hours. After a positive response from the officials that they will consider the demand, the students withdrew the protest and allowed vehicles to use the main road