After doing away with the bus stand

After doing away with the bus stand, the bus stops will be spruced up with a designated bus lane. "The bus stands will be scattered across BBD Bag and route numbers will be clearly written on the boards. A bus of a particular route will be allowed to stop only at its designated stop. This will do away with the chaos now prevailing in the area," said an officer of traffic and transportation planning directorate.

Like BBD Bag, the new government will also implement the high court order in both cleaning up and trimming the Esplanade bus terminus. It has been a long-standing demand of green activists to shift the bus terminus from Esplanade. "The Esplanade bus terminus is part of the Maidan, the lungs of the city. So our demand was to return Maidan its part which is now so shabby, polluted and an ugly face of the city," said green activist Subhas Datta.

Dutta said the Left Front government had violated the high court verdict by not shifting the stand elsewhere. The Mamata Banerjee government has decided to implement the HC order that had ordered the bus stand to be shifted without any delay. The court had also asked the government to fix a deadline for the project.

"We will reorganise the bus stand. The entire long-distance stand will be shifted elsewhere. There will be a much organised, yet smaller, stand at Esplanade. But only a few buses will be allowed to stand there, said an officer. Keeping in mind the sprucing up of BBD Bag on the lines of its colonial heritage architecture, we are also redesigning the passengers' shelters at bus stops. They will look vintage, but modern in amenities. This model will finally be replicated in the rest of the city," said a senior tourism department officer.