There is no bus stop in your locality. Write a letter to the Municipal Commissioner of your town/city complaining about the problem. Offer possible solutions.

MODEL ANSWER

14, Lake View Road Kolkata 700029

12 March 2025

The Municipal Commissioner Kolkata Municipal Corporation 5, S.N. Banerjee Road Kolkata 700013

Subject: Request for a bus stop at Lake View Road

Sir,

I write on behalf of the residents of Lake View Road and the three lanes adjoining it to draw your attention to the absence of any bus stop in our locality.

The nearest stop is at Gariahat crossing, a walk of almost two kilometres. For working people this is an inconvenience; for the elderly, for schoolchildren and for those carrying shopping it is a real hardship. Worse, buses are in practice flagged down wherever passengers happen to be standing, so that they halt in the middle of a busy road. There have been two near-accidents at the Lake View Road junction in the past six months, and during the monsoon the situation is dangerous.

May I respectfully suggest the following remedies:

1. A bus stop with a shelter may be constructed near the Lake View Road junction, where the road is wide enough to allow a bus to pull in.
2. If a permanent structure requires time, a marked halting point with a signboard may be provided immediately as a temporary measure.
3. Routes 12B and 45 already pass this way and could be directed to halt here at no additional cost.

I shall be grateful if the matter is looked into at an early date. The residents are willing to meet your office at any convenient time.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully, Ria Sen (Secretary, Lake View Road Residents’ Association)

THE FORMAT MARKS ARE THE EASIEST TWO MARKS IN THE PAPER

A formal letter requires ALL of the following, and each missing element costs: sender’s address (top left) date receiver’s designation and address SUBJECT LINE — the single most commonly omitted element salutation "Sir" or "Madam" (not "Dear Sir" with a name) body "Yours faithfully" (use "Yours sincerely" only when you have addressed the person by name) signature with name

The question sets TWO tasks, and the second is where candidates lose content marks:

1. COMPLAIN about the problem — state it precisely, with concrete detail (the distance, the near-accidents) rather than general grumbling.
2. OFFER POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS — the word "offer" makes this compulsory. Give two or three, numbered, and make them practical. A letter that only complains cannot score full content marks however well written.

Register: courteous and impersonal throughout. No sarcasm, no threats, no exclamation marks. "May I respectfully suggest" and "I shall be grateful" are the registers that earn expression marks.

FORMAT AND MARKS DIVISION: see the Formal Letter and Informal Letter references in the Writing Formats & Marking (Reference) chapter.

USE THIS AS A MODEL, NOT AS AN ANSWER TO MEMORISE. The question asks for an ORIGINAL composition, and every year examiners identify scripts reproduced from guide books; a memorised answer can be penalised for plagiarism and will in any case read as borrowed. Study this piece for its STRUCTURE — how it opens, how the paragraphs are ordered, where the required tasks are answered, how it ends — and then write your own, about your own school, your own family, your own town. Your own specific detail is worth more marks than anyone else’s polished sentence.