Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Nov 5: The city bus owners association here has come forward to contribute in its own way in the matter of supporting 'Swachh Bharat' concept coined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It has planned to introduce dust bins in all the city buses in phases soon.

The city has about 360 city buses plying to various destinations from 6 am to 10.30 pm every day. About a lac of people use these bus services and 25 percent of them are students. Therefore, maintaining cleanliness within the buses is of paramount importance.

City bus passengers are often seen tossing skins of toffees they eat, bus tickets, fruit peels, eatables, paper, bottles etc either inside the bus or out. This creates nuisance for others besides polluting the environment. To stop this, the bus owners have come forward to provide dust bins. This experiment had been introduced in some long route buses like the Karkala - Beltangady - Kundapur - Dharmasthala, and some other routes where the passenger response has been found o be good.

President of the association, Dilraj Alva, said that initially dust bins would be provided in five buses running on No. 27 route and this will be extended to more buses with passage of time. He said that it is the duty of passengers to keep their environment including buses clean. A conductor, who has kept dust bin in his bus successfully since a year, has appreciated the passengers for being cleanliness-conscious and putting waste into the dustbins. He however cautions that maintaining the dustbin clean is also equally important.