Hyderabad: The historic central bus station (CBS) popularly known as Gowliguda bus stand, tumbled down today. Since the bus stand is not in use there were no buses or passengers during the time of its collapsed. The bus station was declared unusable and had been completely shut down from June 30.

Gowliguda is the oldest and the first bus stand in Hyderabad. Dates back to 88 years, the bus stand was earlier a shed established by Nizams on the banks of Musi river. Later the Nizams had converted this shed into a bus stand.

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Going back into history, the Gowliguda bus stand became operational from 1932 with 30 platforms and 27 buses operating. Interestingly, the Gowliguda bus stand started operations with 166 employees belonging to Nizam Road Transport. The buses from Gowliguda connected the state and also other states. With the number of buses increasing and passengers growing, the government converted this into a city bus stand from 1994.

On hearing the news that Gowliguda bus stand collapsed, Telangana transport minister Mahendar Reddy visited the spot and enquired the officials for the reason of this huge structure falling down. He was thankful that the bus stand was not operational when the incident happened. He reminded everyone that Seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan had used his shed to park his airplane.

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He informed the press that the shed was built in 1930 by Butler Company of USA. This was then named as Mississippi Air Craft Hangar. Later Nizam handed it over to Nizam Road Transport and was converted into first bus depot. "This is one of the historical constructions in Telangana," he observed.

Meanwhile, TSRTC said that it would use the place where the Gowliguda bus stand stood for generating additional income to the corporation and they would soon discuss the issue with chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao.