In order to give the city’s thriving urban facade a spruced-up look, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City started uprooting decrepit bus stands a couple of years ago, replacing them with sleek bus shelters that jelled well with modern infrastructures.
Toady, the new bus stands boast of solar lights, location map and digital hoarding boards, all contributing to accentuate the city’s urban feel.
The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) awarded the contract to build new bus stands to a private company Trilochan Private Limited in 2012.
Sadhu Ram Bhattarai, a former chief of the KMC’s administrative department who had signed the contract, said the deal was signed around the same time when the night bus service was started in the city. The plan was to construct new bus stands of international standard along the entire night bus route, Bhattarai said.
“Although the night bus service would not last long, we did not stop the construction of bus stands in the capital city. Those bus stands were first designed for the ease of night bus passengers,” said Bhattarai.
Till date, 34 new bus stands have been erected along major roads of the capital city. However, the contractors are yet to build them in many other places as per the agreement reached with the KMC.
“We had to hold back the construction for a few days because of the road expansion drive,” said Rajeev Shrestha, one of the owners of the private company assigned to build the stands. “As of now, we are waiting to build bus stands along the ring road. After the road expansion is completed, we will start the work.”
“We did not make the chairs at bus stands comfortable as people slept on those chairs,” said Shrestha.
“These bus stands are of international standard. Every day, our staff reached the bus stands to clean the dust from solar lights. The private company is solely responsible for the construction and maintenance of these bus stands,” said Dhurba Kafle, chief of Revenue Department.
According to KMC officials, such bus stands have also generated interest on digital advertising in the city. Today, there are numerous digital advertisements displayed at bus stands of the Kathmandu city.
According to Shrestha, the KMC office collects tax from such advertisements. “The advertisers are charged Rs 75 per square feet for digital displays at bus stands. The display boards light up automatically at night as they are fitted with timer,” said Shrestha.
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From next month, the private company is planning to install dustbins at all bus shelters.
“The KMC office has asked us to place dustbins at all bus stands, so we are all set to keep trash bins at all the stands. Similarly, the office has to collect garbage from the station every day,” said Shrestha.
According to Shrestha, they are also mulling the possibility of placing vending machines that would dispense chocolates, juice, cigarette, among others, automatically, after people insert coins in the machine.
Land acquisition slowing construction
A committee was formed to oversee speedy construction of 27 new bus stands along the Kathmandu ring road under the Department of Roads (DoR) on March 23.
Along with officials of DoR, the committee has representatives from Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) and Metropolitan Traffic Police Division (MTPD).
Arjun Jung Thapa, deputy director general of the DoR, said the goal was to have a bus stand every one kilometer.
However, the finding or acquiring land for constructing bus stands is already proving to be a major hindrance. Along with the ring road, the committee plans to build bus stands in all major road sections in Kathmandu.
“It’s very hard to find free land to construct such bus stations in ring road side,” said Thapa. “We cannot erect bus stands on someone’s personal property. So we formed the committee of different stakeholders and tasked it with proposing appropriate solution to this problem.”
According to Thapa, apart from the ring road, the plan is to build such stands at major road sections such as Maitighar, Tinkune, among others.
“The KMC has already signed contract with some private companies who have the previous experience of building bus stands in Kathmandu,” said Thapa. “However, the new bus stands would be different from the ones built in the past,” said Thapa.
“Once the committee’s preliminary meetings come up with appropriate solution to the land problem, we will start the construction part,” said Thapa.
Although, there are set standards for constructing bus stands, Thapa said, it is very difficult to maintain the standards because of the difficulty in finding suitable land. That is the reason why the support of the MTPD and other stakeholders was sought in the process.
“It is not possible to meet all the standards on the construction of a bus stand every time as some available land are not so spacious,” said one official at the Road Traffic Security Unit, under the DoR.
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