Kozhikode: In protest against the dire conditions of service roads along the under-construction National Highway 66, private buses from Vatakara to Koyilandy and Perambra routes are kept off the roads for day on Monday as a token strike called by its operators. The strike, called by a joint council of different unions of bus employees started in the morning on Monday and will continue through the day. The employees launched a sit-in protest in front of the office of the construction company (Wagad Infra Projects) in Nandi, which is carrying out the construction works of the NH bypass road widening project.

The joint council of the employees has warned of an indefinite strike from 27th June onwards if their demands are not met within a week.

Nearly 55 buses on both the routes have stopped services as part of the protest. However, the long route buses on Kozhikode-Vadakara and Kozhikode-Kannur routes are running as usual.

As the NH bypass road widening works are underway, the vehicles on the route are mainly using service roads. At some stretches, the NH bypass is open and at some places, the old National Highway road is also being used. So, the primary concern is the poor condition of the service roads. The onset of monsoon further worsened the road conditions with water logging and mud accumulation.

'The service roads and the portions of the old bypass road are in a pathetic condition. Water logging and narrow, damaged service roads with numberless potholes are the main challenges we face on these routes. Once a bus falls in a pothole, it's very difficult to take it out from there. It's time-consuming and incurs huge costs for repeated maintenance. The service road on the east side of the NH on the Iringal -Kalarippadi route is too narrow. When a vehicle comes from the opposite direction, the whole road is struck by traffic block. These factors delay services by half an hour to an hour. Sometimes buses are forced to stop the services on the way because of the late running, said Siva Prakash, Union President, BMS in Payyoli to Onmanorama.

The reason for the waterlogging is the unscientific construction of drainage. On many of the roads, the ridges of the drainage are above the road level. Moreover, the tyres get damaged after hitting the edges of the drainage slabs.

"We had alerted the contract company several times on the steps need to be taken during monsoon season and even met them directly months before the rains started. But, nothing materialised; we don't know what the reason is," he added. BJP leader M Mohanan inaugurated the sit-in protest and Siva Prakash presided over the event.