THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Getting under an Ananthapuri bus to change its shackle-pin at Peroorkada bus depot, the last thing that KSRTC employee Krishnakumar ever expected to happen was the bus to fall on him. But, on Wednesday midnight, that was exactly what happened. The jack on which the bus rested broke into two, sending the huge vehicle crashing down on him. Krishnakumar just managed to slip out of the way of the falling bus, but still suffered injuries on his back and has to scan himself to rule out further damage. This is the fifth accident of such nature to happen at the bus depot, two of which having occurred in the last three months, say enraged employees of the depot. The jacks for raising the massive vehicles are decades-old, and their number too is insufficient for a depot that has 125 buses. Several requests were made to provide new tools, but to no avail. Forget new tools, the tools for the 15 low-floor buses have not been provided at all. While the service contract has been given to a private company, the dis-assembling and assembling of parts, including gear boxes, are being done by the KSRTC employees.‘’Most of the time, the humongously heavy low-floor buses are jacked up using the same tools as for the lighter buses. If the low-floor buses were to fall on someone, he will not live to tell the tale,’’ said a KSRTC employee at the depot, who did not wish to be named. Krishnakumar, however, did not wish to remain anonymous and told us about the pathetic working conditions, lack of enough ramps and slippery ground beneath the existing ramp. ‘’We stand and work on a mix of grease and oil, which is never cleaned. It is so slippery that it is purely because of luck that we have not had any major accidents,’’ said Krishnakumar. The other major problem at the Peroorkada bus depot is the lack of enough garage mazdoors. The employees allege that though there are at least seven vacancies for the post, the government is not showing any interest in filling them up. ‘’It is the duty of the garage mazdoors to clean the garage and replace the heavy repairing tools. The person who repairs the buses gets too tired by the entire day’s work to shift the heavy tools that most of the time, these tools are kept under the buses. Now they say the tools get damaged because of this,’’ said some employees of the depot. KSRTC MD Alexander K Luke, when contacted by City Express, said that he would look into the issue and sympathetically consider the grievances of the employees.
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