At a recent Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) meeting the issue was brought to the notice of Ramakanth Reddy by the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC). As of now there are nearly 600 bus shelters in the city, but the contentious issue is that many of them are not constructed where they are actually required.

In places like Mettuguda, Rail Nilayam, Alugaddabavi, Punjagutta, Balamrai, Diamond Point, Hasmatpet, Ameerpet there are no bus shelters though the locations have been considered important.

Ironically in some locations there are bus shelters though there is no notified bus stop. The epitome is the NTR Marg where there are nearly six bus shelters though buses do not ply on the road. Similar is the case at Road Number 2 in Banjara Hills, Maithrivanam near Ameerpet, Balkampet and others.

It has been alleged that GHMC allowed the contractors to construct bus shelter at locations where there will be demand for advertisements.

There are many locations in the city, where additional bus shelters are constructed than what is required, though the passenger movement is minimal. But those locations attract high eyeballs and the scope for advertisement revenue is high for the contracting firm.

Till late 2005, nearly 1,250 bus shelters have been constructed and maintained by APSRTC. The revenue generated from advertisements on bus shelters had been used by APSRTC.

Later GHMC expressed its interest to the government to take up construction of bus shelters itself besides seeking a 50 per cent share in advertisement revenue.

In 2008, the GHMC allocated works for the construction of Modern Bus Shelters, in place of existing bus shelters, and awarded works to some contractors. All the bus shelters were constructed under Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) model.

Initially the identification of locations for bus shelters was done unilaterally by GHMC in coordination with contractors. Realising that the constructed bus shelters were not where the bus stops should have been, a committee was formed with officials of GHMC and APSRTC as members to identify the locations.

The committee finalised the locations but still a number of bus shelters were constructed disregarding passengers’ convenience.

``The Chief Secretary had directed both the GHMC and APSRTC to undertake a study afresh and relocate the bus shelters keeping passengers’ convenience in mind,” said sources in the APSRTC.