On Thursday, bus services in several parts of Karnataka were severely disrupted due to the diversion of a total of 2,162 KSRTC buses to transport people attending the ‘Janakalyana Swabhimani Samavesha’ held in Hassan. The buses, originating from divisions including Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Mandya, Hassan, Chikkamagaluru, Davangere, Tumakuru, Puttur, and Shivamogga, were used from 7 am to 5 pm for the convention.
The diversion of buses caused significant inconvenience to regular commuters, especially in the Hassan division, where public transport services were hit hard. This led to protests, particularly by students in Bilikere, Hunsur taluk, who attempted to board the buses and were frustrated by the lack of services. The protesters, joined by local villagers, removed banners from the buses and staged a flash protest. The police intervened to calm the situation, and similar protests were reported at several other locations.
KSRTC officials explained that the bus service disruption affected mofussil services across multiple taluks in Hassan district. To manage the situation, 500 BMTC buses were diverted to the Mysuru region, including 150 for Mysuru city and 50 for the rural division. Additionally, 100 buses from the KSRTC central division were also redirected to Mysuru to handle the large crowd. The Mysuru urban division managed to increase bus availability by avoiding crew changes at depots between 12 pm and 3 pm, utilizing 125 additional buses. The rural division similarly deployed over 50 extra buses to cope with the increased demand.
Despite these efforts, commuters continued to experience significant disruption, highlighting the challenges posed by such large-scale events on local transportation networks.
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