For residents of Sambhuvanipalem, June 24 was a day they finally felt connected to the city of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, which their village is part of.
Bus no. 25 P/S, decked with marigold, drove down a kuchha road flanked by trees, its driver beaming to the 15-odd people, mostly women and children, who had come dressed in their colourful best, to take a ride. Temperatures had reached 40 degrees Celsius and a heatwave was imminent, but that was not a deterrent to dim the excitement of the arrival of the red-and-white APSRTC vehicle in the Kambalakonda forest reserve, where Sambhuvanipalem lies.
Connecting Sambhuvanipalem, a tribal village in ward number 6 of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC), the bus will run about 12 km to Maddilapalem. The village in the Bheemunipatnam constituency is about 17 km from the APSRTC complex in Dwaraka Nagar and just 6 km from Dr. YSR ACA VDCA Stadium, which has hosted a number of international cricket matches. Yet, it took 75 years after India’s Independence for public transport to reach an area that is not far from the city centre.
