Sunday, March 18, 2007

GOVT BUS SERVICE

i am a medical oficer placed at nagapatnam...everytime i have to travel some 350kms from home to reach duty place.
this experience is with govt.(SETC)state express transport corporation!

i reach SETC bus station in madurai by 10:30pm to go to nagapatnam.i asked the person at the reservation counter about availability of any bus to nagapatnam.
he says a bus may(?) come by 12 or 1230....but not sure!
i askd if any other bus to nagai after that?
he says maybe at 1pm...you wait and see
when i enquired about reservation status,seat vacancy.... he replied very sincerely that he doesn"t know if seats are available or not.......
that means if i wait till 1230/1 at night,even if by god's grace the bus comes, i willnot know whether i have a place to sit until i peep in to that bus.
if i got a seat then ok...its worth the wait...
if not then the time i wasted in waiting?........

why is this govt machinery dead slow?
in this age of communication boom,they are not even able to say the correct time and seat vacancy status of a bus!
ok...lets come back to setc bus station...i waited and the bus came ....i was disappointed to see that all seats were vacant!!!!
so they are not bothered to make some busines happen there!
they dont even have the feel abt it.

ok some other time , fed up with such irritating responses from SETC, i go to a private bus service which goes upto karaikkal and i can getdown at nagai......
i ask him if bus is there to nagai!

he ,with real concern asks me where i have to go,and asks me politely to wait a moment.....
calls a cell no!-must have been cell no of the bus driver/helper...
checks the seat vacancy status....
then again calls madurai office to know if anybody has booked ticket,confirms my seat...
and turns back tome and says
"sir the bus is now at virudhunagar which is 1 hr journey to madurai.
the bus will reach here in an hour and your seat no. is 28w....,
your ticket is confirmed....

happy..i get a ticket and wait for the bus!

people! that's the dedication...that is customer satisfaction...
it was late night..around 11pm and the cost of calls he made would not have been more than 2rupees!(after 1o most cell co.s charge only 40paise per minute)
look! he didnot use any GPS to say me the information...its sheer common sense and a sense of responsibility added with the drive to make profit for his company!

bus comes as said ,my seat occupied by me...had a good journey and night"s sleep!

why is the govt"s service so poor that you are irritated to the core even before you ask journey details?
whose gonna teach them a lesson?
you have to tell me
i am desperate!!!!

7 comments:

Kuttich Chuvaru said...

You are a medical officer and without a proper reservation, looking for a bus to such a long distance and a that too in the night. First i have to doubt your sincerity towards reaching time to nagai. This is how our other govt machineries function!!! sorry if it hurts you!!!!!!!

Dr LOKESHWAR SINGH said...

thx for your comment!
so you mean to say that travelling in SETC bus is a sin if it is late in the night and if it is long distance!
i never told i didnot reserve for tickets!!the setc staffs there told me that i CANNOT reserve for that bus as it is coming from nagercoil and
they told me that they cannot tell me
-at what time the bus will come, seat availability....
he behaved as if he has attained realisation/samadhi at that moment and appeared to have completely detacahed from this world!!!the final answer was-
uncertainity and irresponsibility!!

what would you say about the same situation and the response by that private bus service!!

my duty is to releive, not to go and start something new there!!till i reach my dutyplace....my colleague will be on duty....so we are sincere in our duty!!

hope you got my point!

Shankar said...

The experience u hav had is not something new.. Even u wud have faced it a lot of times.. but the thing is we hav a system in place and we will hav to get satisfied with the fact that there is a govt. bus running there and if u seriously want to change the system come ,im ready let us fight against all social evils..

Anonymous said...

sankar,
this is the sad state of affairs in all the govt bus stations.
as a sincere tax paying citizen,
Mr. has all right to expect the basic information.
I donot when the situation is goin to change.

Rajakumar said...

I happened to see your blog when I was searching for online reservation for SETC.

Lokesh, you say that your reliever will wait till you relieve him. That actually is the problem of common people. The person who was answering you at the SETC counter would be frustrated waiting for his reliever.

You report a problem when you face and we face this every day. At T.Nagar bus stand while waiting for M27 to go to CMBT at around 8:00pm on 31-Aug-2007, as 3 buses waiting and when asked the time-keeper, which one goes first, his 'responsible' answer was, "It goes on the time it goes. If it is urgent for you take auto and go".

I'm sure, so many of your patients would have lost patience with you.

Your experience is not strange. It happens everywhere, everyday.

Anonymous said...

Update abt Recent Developments in SETC....
check this link -
Public Transportation In Tamil Nadu-Chennai-Coi... - http://tamilnaduacbuses.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I was searching for SETC availability and happened to visit this blog. Even though I am also against SETC in terms of service to the customers, the reply from the counter person looks NOT bad to me. Because, calling the Driver of SETC by another SETC person is difficult as they are large in numbers. Private Travels may have such facility as they may be some 10 or 20 people in TOTAL! SETC is not that much technology oriented and updated corporation! Still since the bus is from Nagercoil, and if somebody (unreserved passengers) fills the available seats at any place between Nagercoil and Madurai, then the availability status update provided by the SETC counter person may go for a toss. So, keeping that in mind, he would have told uncertainty of availability. Anyway, Confirmed Booking of tickets and well prepared journey plans will avoid such frustrated moments for us. Have a Happy Journey !