Residents living in societies along the Noida and Greater Noida Expressway in Sector 137 are unhappy with Noida Metro Rail Corporation's decision to reduce the frequency of its buses on Route No 310.
They said that while earlier there were buses every 20 minutes, as per the new schedule, the gap between two consecutive buses had been increased to an hour.
"NMRC's decision doesn't make sense," said Sandeep Ohari, a resident of Purvanchal Royal Park. "If I am late by even a minute, I will have to now wait for an hour for the next bus to arrive. They have made it so inconvenient for us commuters."
"In January, Bus No 310 was not even following the designated route," said Pramod Taragi, resident of Exotica Fresco. "Instead of going via Sector 137, they were skipping it altogether and heading to Advant tower in Sector 142 from Panchsheel Balak Inter College. That issue was rectified after a bunch of complaints. Now we have another problem, with the time between two consecutive buses being reduced to one third its original frequency."
Nandini Srivastava, resident of Paramount Floraville, said NMRC had not put in enough effort to promote the bus service. She said commuters were not aware of where to stand when waiting for the bus, as there were no bus stops or signboards along the route.
Sandeep Raizada, OSD, NMRC city bus service, said that designated stoppages along the route would soon have signboards. He attributed the delay in their installation to the fact that the code of conduct of the state assembly elections was in force. "We have 50 buses plying on different routes across Noida and Greater Noida," said Raizada. "We are in the process of procuring new buses. Once the new buses arrive, we will increase the number of buses on each route."
