Bridge collapse: Faulty e-ticket system leaves passenger count a mystery

While authorities tried to figure out exact number of vehicles that plunged into Savitri River afterbridgecollapse on MumbaiGoa highway the number of passengers seemed to elude them as well Despite having the Electronic Ticketing Issuing Machine ETIM on both the State Transport ST buses the information on the number of people on board has not been fed back to the serversAlso read Britishera bridge on MumbaiGoa highway washed away in flood 28 missingSpeaking to midday Additional Superintendent of Police Konkan Range Sanjaykumar Patil said ldquoAs per information from Chiplun ST depot both ST buses ndash JaigadMumbai bearing number MH20BN1538 with driver Shamrao Kamble 58 and conductor was Vilas Desai 43 had nine passengers and a total of 11 people on board when the bus left from Chiplun The RajapurBorivili bus bearing number MH40N9739 with driver Goraknath Munde 46 and conductor Prabhakar Shirke 58 had 9 passengers In total the buses had 22 peoplerdquoAlso read Bridge on MumbaiGoa highway too old Brits had warned state government in 201322 or 17However MSRTC officials claim that the actual number of passengers on board of both buses was only 17 of which most of the passengers had taken a ticket only after getting into the bus and only five of them had a reservation ldquoWhile the incident occurred at 1130 pm for almost over 12 hours MSRTC did not even have the actual number of passengers on board despite the conductor having ETIMrdquo said a senior police officerAlso read MumbaiGoa highway bridge collapse No rescue operation was possible says fire officialPit stopPreliminary inquires have revealed that after leaving from Chiplun both buses had to stop at Khed Poladpur and were scheduled to reach Mahad ST stand by midnight However the ST server has no information about the number of passengers who boarded or alighted from the buses on these two stopsAlso read MumbaiGoa bridge collapse The men who watched the horror unfoldWhen inquired about the discrepancies Additional Superintendents of police Konkan range Sanjaykumar Patil said ldquoWe were coordinating with MSRTC officials who informed us about facing some technical glitches to extract details from their server and therefore we decided to go ahead with the details we could get from Chiplun ST standrdquoAlso read MumbaiGoa highway bridge collapse Family friends of missing people hoping against hopeRegarding passengers boarding or alighting at Khed and Polhadpur Patil admitted the numbers might have a variationMeanwhile MSRTC Managing Director Ranjit Singh Deol said ldquoWe got the number of people by early morning but we could not ascertain the names of the passengers and by afternoon we could gather the names of those on board both the buses as per our informationrdquoDiving team commences rescue operations at site of collapsed bridgeBus driver Kambles body has been fished outmidday has learnt that MSRTC issued the contract to Ms Trimax Infrastructure and Services Limited for setting up the entire ETIM networking and machines for buses between 20082009 The company also won a recent tender for setting up ticketing system and smart cards which is already operational in 250 ST depotsConfirming the same Yogesh Dhakras vice president Transport Trimax said ldquoAs soon as the query was raised to us we provided all the required information from the server We must understand that the crew of both the buses changed at Chiplun which also means the ETIM machine and also waybill would be only with the conductors who would have travelled from Chiplun towards Mumbai until the actual waybill number of the machine is not received it would be difficult to track information from serverrdquoldquoWe are confident that even in this case once the search operators track the ETIM we will be able to ascertain the actual number of passengers on board as these machine are GPRS connectedrdquo he saidNowhere to escapePossibilities of an escape for passengers in the ST buses were slim since the door of the bus was locked from the inside There was no emergency or safety gear in the bus to help passengers get out and stay afloat till they were rescued MSRTC Managing Director Ranjit Singh Deol said ldquoOur buses are designed as per the prescribed safety norms with two entry and exit doors and emergency exit windows However we will be discussing other improvement points in our internal meeting and take it forward accordinglyrdquo