By Ramesh Mathew/Staff Reporter
Residents of the densely populated Industrial Area have sought the introduction of circular and semi circular bus services at regular intervals to overcome the travel woes that they are experiencing these days.When contacted by this newspaper, inmates of some residential accommodations in the farther areas of the Industrial Area said they were encountering umpteen difficulties not only to reach Doha and its immediate suburbs but also to travel within the area owing to the absence of adequate number of bus services even during the day time.Interestingly, inquiries found Mowasalat operates most of its services between the city and Industrial Area. Even though Mowasalat is operating a number of services to the Industrial Area, most of such buses terminate their operations in Al Attiyah Market and its surroundings and hence a large number of the residents are not benefited from their services.Inmates of some of the labour camps suggested the transport company to run semi circular and circular buses touching as many streets as possible as feeder services to connect the commuters to Al Attiyah Market. “Such feeder services could be extremely useful to the residents during the day time and we won’t be having much of a problem in our onward journeys from Al Attiyah Market,” pointed out a resident on Street 49. He said residents of their street need to travel upto Street 47 to catch a bus that has only very limited operations. The resident said owing to the absence of the public transport buses on Street 49 their mobility is severely affected.While semi-circulars could start the operations from near Al Watan Petrol Station along the main road linking Industrial Area with Doha, circulars could cover different streets in such a way that onward connectivity could be provided to the residents at Al Attiyah Market.The residents also felt the necessity of increasing frequency of buses to the city in the weekend afternoons.Bus passengers also pointed out the difficulty in reaching places other than Doha owing to the absence of direct buses to those destinations. “The absence of direct buses is making our travels dearer,” said a resident.