New bus Q-shelters vandalized, benches stolen in Gurugram

Even before the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) could launch the new city bus service, its five newly built bus Q-shelters have been vandalised and stainless steel benches, poles and display boards stolen over the past one week.

Police have registered five cases of theft after GMDA filed multiple complaints, officials familiar with the matter said.

A case was registered under section 379 (theft) each at sector 40, Sushant Lok and Sector 57 and two FIRs at sector 29 police station on the complaint of Vikash Malik, executive engineer, GMDA.

Malik said these shelters were being maintained by the Gurugram Metropolitan City Bus Limited (GMCBL) and they have directed the contractor to install new benches and poles. The department has suffered a loss of around RS 7 lakh, officials of GMCBL, a GMDA subsidiary responsible for the bus service, said.

V Umashankhar, chief executive officer (CEO), GMDA, said, “Complaints have been lodged with the police about vandalism and theft at the four bus queue shelters. The GMDA is in the process of auctioning the sites to maintain the bus queue shelters.”

Sumit Kuhar, deputy commissioner of police(Crime), said they have formed teams and are trying to get CCTV footage of two locations to identify the culprits. “We have deployed staff dressed in civilian clothes near the isolated areas to ensure they are caught red-handed,” Kuhar said.

GMDA was scheduled to roll out 25 new buses on August 15. However, the launch was delayed due to “technical reasons”. The service is likely to be launched by August 28. The authority has also identified 11 routes on which the new buses will ply. More than 400 bus Q-shelters have to be built on these routes. Around 180 of them have been built, GMDA officials said.

Thefts were reported from one shelter near Huda Gymkhana Club and between Huda Metro centre and Iffco Chowk in Sector 29, Sector 31, under sector 40 police station, Ardee City gate number one in Sushant Lok police station, and sector 57 extension road between Tigra and Ghata village.

The complaints said that the miscreants seemed to be experts in dismantling benches with tools.

“It appears that some people removed the benches and railings using tools, loaded them into a truck and ran away. The modus operandi of theft at the five shelters is similar,”Malik said

The authority has now requested the police to increase night patrolling to guard the infrastructure at the bus
Q-shelters.

The complaints filed on August 13 mentioned two incidents and two more were reported on Thursday.

Chander Shekhar Khare, additional chief executive officer, Gurugram Mahanagar City Bus Limited (GMCBL), said, “We have come to know of vandalism and theft at some of the queue shelters. We will hand over the shelters to the partner banks of GMCBL for maintenance and caretaking.”

First Published: Aug 18, 2018 05:12 IST