Our Correspondent
Kohima, Oct. 29 (EMN): Nagaland State Transport (NST) buses resumed its services on Thursday, more than six months after it was suspended due to the pandemic.
At the NST station in Kohima on the day of resumption, only one bus was pressed into service for a round trip—Kohima and Dimapur.
Station Superintendent of NST Kohima, Kevichutuo Sekhose said that only one bus plied on a trial on Thursday.
‘But depending on the passengers’ demand for services we will increase the services,’ he added.
The officer said the department is making sure that all passengers, drivers, and conductors are strictly following the standard operating procedures (SOPs).
Besides wearing of mask and using hand sanitiser mandatorily, they are also screening every passenger before boarding the bus. If any of the passengers are detected with high fever during the screening, they are not allowed to board the bus.
He added that depending on the different categories and seats of the buses, tickets are being booked with only 50% seating capacity.
An NST driver from Dimapur, Mughaho Achumi, said that in order to maintain social distancing, the seats were painted red with ‘X’ (cross mark) to keep the passengers from occupying it.
Achumi, who had been driving NST buses for 10 years, expressed happiness at the resumption of the bus services and added that he had “really missed” his work.
Driving on Thursday after such a long time, according to Achumi, was like joining the service for the first time all over again.
From next month onwards, the bus services will start in the outpost stations as well, he said.
Even now, 50% of the NST bus drivers are on Covid-19 duty at the railway station and the airport.
More bus services will increase in the coming days. However, for the time being, it will be running between Kohima and Dimapur only, said another staff.
The passengers from Kohima to Dimapur had earlier paid INR 120 per ticket but that has now been revised to INR 190.
The general manager of NST in a notification issued on October 23 had directed all station officers to work out the fare of their respective stations by applying the multiplier of INR 2.61 per seat per km and round off to the nearest INR 10 till the Covid-19 SOP guidelines are lifted by the government.