Safe city bus travel sought

Visakhapatnam: Women employed with private establishments and often working later than 10 pm are not ensured of safe public transport home. With buses in the city becoming less frequent after 9 pm and no bus bays where women can wait, they are forced to use autorickshaws, which ply unsupervised in the evenings in many areas.
Officials of the Regional Transport Authority observed that Vizag city had more than 8,000 autorickshaws whose drivers did not display their details, such as police station limits. Often too, they drove under the influence of alcohol.
While speaking at the recently held rally in protest against the Delhi gang-rape incident, the city president of All India Democratic Women’s Asso-ciation. Ms M. Sujatha, said that with the increasing number of working women, many of whom have to travel at night, police and other officials should be in attendance to ensure their safety.
The additional deputy commissioner of police (Traffic), Mr V. Suresh Babu said that in light of the Delhi gang-rape, they were chalking out plans to deploy more cops for night patrolling at all the strategic places to ensure women’s safety. He said that soon they would go hi-tech and use surveillance cameras to monitor vehicle movement round the clock.