MARGAO: Travelling by public road transport is way of life for a majority of the people in the state. And a large number of them pass through the Margao’s Kadamba Transport Corporation (KTC) bus stand; most out of necessity.

This hub has buses entering or leaving every five minutes or so and thousands of commuters use it to go to office; with more from the rest of the state also using it as a transit point for their onward journeys – either to go deeper south, or to explore Goa, if they are tourists.
And many times commuters have to wait, be it for five minutes or maybe more for the bus of their choice. However, this bus stand is bereft of any dustbins and two small ‘patlas’ as they are called serve as dustbins.
If you are drinking water or having a packet of chips you do not know what to do with the empty bottle or the packet.
“These days it is hot and many people use mineral water bottles especially tourists. But once the water is over there is no place to throw the bottles,” complained Krishna, who is here with his family for a holiday.
When a lady who was sweeping the bus stand was asked why, she said that they emptied the baskets and cleaned up the stand on a regular basis.
Ashok, a commuter who works in Panaji complained that there are boards to keep the place clean but here at such a busy place the authorities do not have the foresight to keep dustbins at as many places as possible, given that so many people use the place.
According to another commuter, Neshwin, whenever he asked a shopkeeper where to put an empty tetra pack, he was told to put it in a defunct water purifier.
According to the people that frequent the bus stand they say that the purifier, supposed to be succour to thirsty travellers has not been working for the past three years.    
The state transport corporation’s premier ‘shuttle service’ itself plies around 100 plus buses to and fro from Panaji while at least 35 trips are made from and to Vasco. And there are the buses that go deep south. And then there are the private buses.
The passengers travelling in a bus can range from 20-odd to even 40, with peak hours like morning and evening seeing people choc a block all over the place.
The KTC operates the bus stands in almost all of cities and towns and at a recent press conference, KTC officials had informed that it had spent about Rs 1 crore on the improvement of sewerage system, repairs and maintenance of Panaji bus station and Rs 50 lakh on improvement of sewerage system of other KTC bus stands in the state.
Also in 2009, an announcement was made that the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation was working on a proposal for a brand new multi-storeyed complex at Margao with the corporation forwarding the proposal to the government.
The proposal was to utilize 66,000 square metre of prime land located at the entrance of the commercial city and was expected to require some Rs 200-Rs 300 crore of investment.
The new hub on the outskirts also includes the government’s mega projects like the upcoming building complex of the South Goa collectorate and a district hospital.